


Fuck the Timeline; or, A New, Practical Approach to Chronomancy

by WideTheWaters



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1980s, A Whole Port Full of Ships, Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Adult Hermione Granger, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, BAMF Hermione Granger, Banter, But which to sail upon?, Canonical Deaths of Major Characers Revisited, Casual Sex, Cheekiness, Children's Literature, Choices, Content Warnings on Some Chapters, Explicit Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Feminist Themes, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Hermione is Out of Fucks to Give and It's Time to GTFO of her Way, Hogwarts, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?, Love Triangles, M/M, Mentor Minerva McGonagall, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Ministry of Magic Employee Draco Malfoy, Ministry of Magic Employee Hermione Granger, Multi, Not Wanting to Fall in Love, Open Relationships, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), POV Hermione Granger, Plot With Porn, Portrait Severus Snape - Freeform, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Punk Rock, Raising Harry Potter, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Rough Sex, SJW Hermione Granger, Saving the Longbottoms, Sex Magic, Sexual Tension, Smut, Suddenly the Same Age, Sword of Gryffindor, Three Broomsticks, Time Travel, Timeline Shenanigans, Timeline be Damned, Timelines, Unresolved Tension, Wizarding Wars (Harry Potter), Young Harry Potter, Young Remus Lupin, Young Severus Snape, Young Sirius Black, or is it?!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:47:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 70
Words: 156,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23243521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WideTheWaters/pseuds/WideTheWaters
Summary: A year after her delayed graduation from Hogwarts, established in a promising Ministry career, and beginning to put the past behind her, Hermione Granger's world collapses into a single moment's careless mishap.Uncertain if she is dead, dying, or truly thrown out of her own time, she finds herself revisiting an earlier world. Partly from exhaustion and exasperation with a lifetime of following the rules, partly because she's convinced it's all in her head and none of it will matter anyway, she decides that, this time, things will be different.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, At least some Hermione Granger/Narcissa Malfoy, At least some Hermione Granger/Remus Lupin, At least some Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, At least some Sirius Black/Hermione Granger, Background Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Background Relationships that would frankly be spoilers, Background Sirius Black/Marlene McKinnon, Hermione Granger/So Many 'Ships On Which To Set Sail - but which to pick?, Minor Rolanda Hooch/Pomona Sprout
Comments: 1546
Kudos: 810





	1. BOOK 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress, which is drafted to around 5 chapters ahead of what's posted and has a very general arc plotted. The beginning was posted in part to keep the author honest - that is, to keep me writing and updating. At present, the goal is to add at least one new chapter each week.
> 
> This work has Books as well as Chapters, and announcing each will take one AO3 chapter - not ideal, but it gets the job done. 
> 
> Please be aware that tags will change and warnings are likely to change as this work is written. To clarify: no Lovecraftian horror twists are anticipated, nor utter turns for the comedic, but there will be moments of horror and humor, as well as explicit sex and violence. (revised circa publication of chapter 23)

# Prologue: Hindsight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note - this work has sections I'm calling books, because that's what books call them. They each have a chapter that's blank but the book title at the beginning. This is the first, and it was on purpose because I couldn't think of a better way to do it so that people could navigate to the start of a given book.


	2. Commencement

###  JUNE, 2000 - GROUNDS OF THE HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY

Hermione took a deep breath and, after pausing a moment to sip from the glass of water, returned her gaze to the crowd.

“There are, of course, many I know we all wish were here to celebrate with us today. We must never forget their sacrifice as we go on to forge the future of the magical world. How can we honor them? Remember them? Ensure that our own children, someday, do not join them in dying too young?”

She noticed some restless shifting in seats, particularly further back, where families sat - but the students, with few exceptions, had their eyes and attention on her.

“I say it is through kindness. Not the sort we’ve grown up with, but the sort that will unite us all across the lines that have always formed faults in the cohesion of our community. You may be surprised,” she said, fidgeting with her cards, “to learn that my current partner at work in the Ministry is both a former Death Eater and a  _ friend _ ,” she said, pausing to let some gasps and whispers die down before continuing, “And we are working together to better understand the differences and similarities between the magics of  _ all _ kinds of sentient magical beings and creatures. It is our  _ mutual  _ hope that this work will create a foundation on which we can campaign for  _ everyone -  _ human or otherwise - who is capable of wielding a wand to be entitled to bear one and study here,” she gestured behind her to the castle, “both to learn to use magic as human mages to and to show classmates of different backgrounds how similar we really are - as teammates. Housemates. Chess partners. Academic rivals.” 

She said this last smiling wryly to Draco, who was in the audience among official guests, half-heartedly attempting to glare at her. 

“Everyone here knows I am a Muggle-born,” she said, holding her scarred forearm to the side where it could be seen, “and I hope I have helped to prove that status has no impact on magical ability unless it is because those born in this world work to exclude and marginalize us.” She paused a moment for some cheers before continuing. “It may surprise you, however, to learn that none of us might be here right now were it not for the courage and  _ independence _ of a house elf, who gave his life to save Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Griphook (a Goblin of Gringotts), and myself from imprisonment by Death Eaters.”

She let the hush sit a breath. “It may also surprise you to learn that same Goblin was in part responsible for the destruction of one of the means by which Voldemort held his power, and that without his help, we could never have prevailed. Or that Harry himself was saved from Voldemort in his very first year at Hogwarts by a Centaur from the Forbidden Forest Colony. I hope… I hope you are  _ less  _ surprised to know that,” she paused, her voice breaking, “without the tutelage of Remus Lupin, a werewolf and our best Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher,” she paused for cheers from the 7th years, who’d studied with him, “we would  _ never  _ have been half so able to complete the work necessary to defeat Tom Riddle and put his Pureblood Supremacist movement to rest.”

She looked around, meeting as many sets of engaged eyes as she could. 

“So this is my advice to you: befriend a rival. Get to know someone you don’t understand. Learn Mermish, or Gobbledygook. Spend a few weeks among Muggles and learn more about who they truly are, and how they - and many of the Muggle-borns among you, like me - live or have lived.”

She bowed her head and chewed her lip a moment, then looked up again with fire in her dark eyes. “Do not let fear and hate divide us again. Do not let your friends do it, and do not let your enemies. Give up now on having enemies, and we might just be alright.”

She looked around, uncertain, always, when speaking to a crowd, if she had chosen the right words. But she carried on. “I… I believe these are the ways we may make a new mark, as the children of the war, on a new age. A kinder one. A more inclusive one. We must transcend the fear we all learned together and honor  _ all  _ those who fought for our futures or emerged wiser from the crucible of war. If we must fight, let us do so to ensure those we falsely believed to be less than or separate from us can enjoy every right and privilege any pure-blood wizard enjoys”

She smiled sadly. “Grand plans aside, do it for yourself - for the opportunities to know incredible people that pass you by when you pass them over. There are so many people I wish I’d known better, and even if we all strive our hardest, nothing about the future is guaranteed.”

Faces flickered and faded in her mind as she considered all those who should have been making this address instead of her. But she gathered herself, and sighed. 

“I hope you will join me in working for a safer, kinder tomorrow, my fellow Hogwarts graduates, and wish you my sincerest congratulations upon your Commencement.”

As she looked up with a slight step back to indicate she was done, there was applause. Much of it contemplative. Some of it thunderous and standing. There were, at least, mercifully few seated and glaring. 

Well, maybe  _ someone  _ could befriend them yet. Hermione was tired, and hoped she could be forgiven for not wanting it to have to be her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For better or worse, I am absolutely influenced in how I write my works in progress by the comments of interested readers. I'd love to hear from you about your hopes for this work, and things you'd like to see or see more of.


	3. Shifting Ties

###  HEADMISTRESS’S OFFICE

Later, she sat with Headmistress McGonagall in her office, looking around at the slumbering portraits and sipping firewhisky. 

Minerva eyed her thoughtfully over her own gillywater. “And how are you doing, my dear?” she asked, finally.

Hermione smiled back wearily, her right thumb and forefinger reflexively worrying at the dent where the ring had once been. “I’m alright.”

Minerva gave her a stern look that said  _ I know when I’m being lied to, young lady. _

Hermione shrugged and let the smile fall away. “All things considered, I’m alright,” the younger woman sighed. “Draco, of all people, has been grand - brings me soup, shows up at my flat most mornings to make sure I’m awake and drops me straight into the shower if I won’t get out of bed. Won’t let me out until I’ve washed, either,” she mused, shaking her head with a half smile and tired eyes. “Harry’s trying, but of course he’s caught in the middle, what with various entanglements, even though he’s said he agrees it was for the best. Molly keeps throwing things at Ron and asking me for tea, but I only went the once and she sobbed the entire time, and as much as the Weasley’s have been family to me… he needs her more. Ron keeps blustering like I’ll think better of it all and come back to him. But I won’t.”

Minerva nodded, letting a rare bit of concern show through. “No, I don’t imagine you will. Mr. Weasley is… a good boy, but not yet a sufficient  _ man  _ to be making decisions about the course of the rest of his life if it’s to be a happy one, I think. He’s cleverer than he believes himself to be, after suffering so very much comparison, and he nurtures more jealous than is healthy. And he’s very stodgy, in some ways - I do not think, Ms. Granger, that you were any more cut out to marry immediately upon reaching your majority than I was, in love or otherwise.”

Hermione smiled a bit. “That sounds like a story.”

Minerva scoffed. “Oh, read the frog card, I don’t cry in front of my former students.”

Hermione shrugged. “Perhaps, someday, you could tell a friend.”

McGonagall looked back at her appraisingly. “That… could be agreeable.” She sniffed, then, looking about as if to locate a good reason to change the subject. “That all, though… well, it leaves you rather adrift. Are you making new friends, Hermione?”

She shrugged. “Maybe? I’m talking to the Slytherins some, as Draco drags me to the Leaky after work some days. Astoria’s nice, and I like Blaise, but I want to jinx Pansy more the more I talk to her. I chat with the volunteers, of course, those participating in the Ministry study, but… well. All the people I was closest to in both the Muggle and non-human Magical worlds are gone, and many of the mages left are estranged on account of that other business. And that’s…” she took a deep breath, damned if she was going to cry or let her voice break, “Well, that’s  _ hard _ .”

Minerva put her hand on the younger witch’s and they sat, unspeaking and looking into the fire, for a few minutes.

Eventually, Minerva stood up, and Hermione blinked and turned to look at her. “I have something for you. The magic… well, that bit’s done, but I want you to see… well. Wait a few minutes? I’ll go and get it.”

The older woman stood and quickly disappeared into the adjoining meeting room, which Hermione knew held a door that led to her quarters.

Hermione looked around, missing Fawkes’ brilliance and warmth. Her eyes caught on the sleeping Dumbledore - he was  _ always _ sleeping when anyone who might wish to cross examine him was there - and then stopped at the sight of a very awake, very attentive Severus Snape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello I am bad at parceling things out over time.


	4. Unexpected Words and an Unexpected Slip

“Befriending Slytherins, Ms. Granger?” her old Potions Professor drawled. “How very… fascinating.” He looked at her piercingly and she folded her arms across her chest as he gazed at her. She had to wonder if a portrait could perform Legilimecy - and raised her walls in case. 

“Yes, I am,” she replied with an arch of her brow. “Any tips for me, Professor?”

He paused, looking at her thoughtfully. “If they scare you, shame you, or fluster you, _smile_. Let them think they’re rather cute in their childish antics. It would never have worked for me, but it might for you.”

She furrowed her brow, surprised by the real helpfulness of the reply, before standing to walk over to him. “If you could do it over, what would you have done differently, do you suppose? Little things. Not banishing Riddle as a toddler or something.”

He scowled at her, clearly thinking the impertinent question poor repayment for his sincere advice. “What _could_ I have?”

She canted her head in inquiry. “Is there nothing?”

He was silent a long while before he spoke. “When the Dark Lord took... Mr. Potter’s _parents…_ I was sufficiently distraught that I didn’t close the door when I re-entered my home upon returning there to look for respite at the bottom of a bottle. Not… dreamless sleep. Ogden’s. I… felt I _should_ feel everything, and after so much Occlumency, I needed help to… unfold.”

He looked up, searchingly, as he thought. “Lily… she had sent me a half-Kneazle kitten from her cat’s litter, as a peace offering since I’d joined the Order. She knew I had never had either pet or familiar. It was very young and I was very angry - I threw furniture and screamed and howled all that night. I scared it away and I never saw it again. I should have kept it safe.” He massaged his brow with one hand, glancing up at her. “Instead I failed her, _again_. A little dig into a very deep wound.”

Hermione looked at him, trying to conceal how her heart ached in response to the picture he’d painted, but he still scoffed at the look on her face. “Do not, Ms. Granger, make me regret this confidence. I do not want your pity. But I do wish to remind you that even Ms. Parkinson is a person, and that you do not know what made her who she is today. I have only known one man who I believe was _born_ unable to love. To muster the compassion to determine what has closed the hearts of others seems to me to be central to the real pursuit of the goals you yourself set today’s graduates.”

Hermione shook her head, looking around exhaustedly. “I didn’t know you had heard it.”

Snape shrugged. “The ghosts are occasionally useful in keeping those of us who are less mobile informed.”

She nodded and was quiet for a long moment, conscious of him watching her face. Sighing, she looked at the sword of Gryffindor, hung by its belted sheath between Snape and the slumbering portrait of Dumbledore. 

Well. _Some_ questions could be asked.

“Professor,” she said, looking at Snape with a strange mixture of long-ingrained caution and new-found verve, “Much as I’d like to _muster compassion,_ I have to admit I didn’t find your Pensieve memories as exonerating as Harry did, and as we’ve developed a sort of rapport, I have to ask: do you regret treating Lily as... something you were _entitled_ to?” Impulsively, as she spoke, she drew the sword. She had never actually touched it before, and she marvelled at its lightness in her hand.

Snape’s eyes flitted to the blade a moment before they returned to her eyes warily. “It becomes very difficult to learn some things, when you have wanted the opposite to be true hard enough.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder as she stood there, holding an _ochs_ guard. Funny; she thought the sword had been smaller, before.

“I wonder, now, if rather than making excuses, you could simply say _yes_ , you do. Simply acknowledge that it was never right.” She swept down to _alber_. 

“Ms. Granger,” he replied, his words becoming a bit clipped, “I am not Mr. Weasley, nor am I the _patriarchy_ _incarnate_. _You_ do not understand the circumstances of my own childhood, nor of the great leaps of improvement I fancied even my misguided actions made upon what was modelled for me.” He huffed an exasperated sigh. “Of _course_ you are correct, but who is there left for me to atone to?” He sighed impatiently. “Besides, I will live, in some respects, _well_ beyond my own death with the regret of the wrongs I did her, _the most_ important person in my life.”

She shook her head, holding the sword loosely by her side in one hand, now. “That doesn’t -”

“I _know,”_ he said, glowering even though his voice broke.

They simply looked at each other for a long moment. 

“I’m attempting to befriend old enemies, to figure out how to atone, or when.” She shrugged. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

He looked more ennervated than angry, now. “Then try understanding rather than judging,” he sighed. “Yet _another_ thing that would never have worked for me.”

“I’ve no idea why you’d say that,” she muttered, not seeing him shake his head at her in exasperation or reach a hand up to push his greasy hair out of his face with more force than necessary. Rather, with a tired shake of her own head, she had turned to sheathe the sword. 

… And yelped when she nicked her finger. She reflexively sucked the offended digit into her mouth. Her hand… her hand hadn’t been anywhere _near_ the blade, had it? Was she _that_ out of practice?

Still holding the sword in one hand, she lifted her finger to look at it, perplexed, as bright red blood pooled on her finger tip. 

“Ms. Granger? Ms. Granger!” Severus looked panicked and paled as she realized she’d stumbled a bit, barely catching herself on an end table as the corners of her vision blurred. “ _Hermione!_ Phineas, Minerva, _someone_ , run for help, _dammit_ , the sword’s cut her, it’s imbued with basilisk venom, you can’t - you can’t … dammit, Granger, _open your eyes!”_

His voice grew muzzy, and she barely felt the jarring impact as her knees hit the stone floor.

“Hermione!!” She heard his voice tearing, and others - McGonagall's, even _Dumbledore’s?_ \- joining it as her eyes fluttered closed, and the room seemed to fuzz and dim, a strange sparkle limning the edges of things. 

The last thing she saw was McGonagall running toward her, a map of what looked like a loch fluttering from her hands, and then everything went black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [queue dramatic chords]


	5. BOOK 2

# Book 2: False Idles

_(or Idols, or Idylls, if you will)_


	6. Confusion

###  NOVEMBER 1, 1981 - GODRIC’S HOLLOW

Hermione blinked awake, or tried to. She had a nausea-inducing headache and her eyes weren’t focusing, and something hard and jagged was under her back. There was… smoke, and darkness. 

And a strangely warm, familiar weight in her right hand. 

It wasn’t her wand, she realized, picking it up. She was still holding the damned sword. 

But where in the hell was she?

Groaning as she tried to scramble over uneven ground - rocks? Rubble? - she blinked and tried to focus, taking stock of herself. 

She was relieved to feel her wand still safe in her sleeve, and dithered a moment about what to do about the ostentatious bit of metal currently in her hand. Grumbling, she pulled her beaded bag from an inside pocket of her Aran cardigan - knitting had panned out, sort of, for the paranoid girl-about-town who wouldn’t go anywhere without plenty of pockets. She reached in with her left hand awkwardly, feeling it would be somehow irreverent to rest the sword on the ground, and fished out the first piece of cloth she groped in the dark - a lacy pair of scarlet knickers, she snorted to see. 

_ Well,  _ this  _ would make some Freudian somewhere happy, _ she thought. 

So she transferred the sword to her left hand and coaxed the wand into her grasp with a flick of her right wrist, pleased the little flourish worked. She’d practiced and practiced in order to stave off more maudlin days, but she couldn’t yet quite flick the wand into her hand without a 35% chance it would end up hurtling through the air. 

Finally, she transfigured the scanty panties into… well. Into a quite  _ spectacularly  _ garish new scabbard, but it would serve.

She managed to get the sword away and into her handbag, then took better stock of her surroundings. There were trees, but also land that looked recently tended, and… oh. No, this  _ was  _ definitely rubble. What on earth…?

And then she heard the cry.

It was such a melancholy, helpless little sound that it scorched directly through her heart and into her viscera. 

And she was off.

❧

Oh,  _ fuck _ , this… oh, oh god, no, it _ couldn’t  _ -

She walked past the man she’d been certain was Harry, eyes blank and a jaw set in undying determination where he lay amid the fallen stones. And then, she’d managed to swing herself up onto what was left of the interrupted stairs. 

Lily had looked nothing like Ginny but for her long, red hair. But there… 

“Severus?” she asked, seeing the sobbing young man holding the woman limp in his arms while… while tiny Harry wept in his crib.

He had his wand pointed at her in an instant.


	7. It was a Lousy Timeline, Anyway

She didn’t even bother to take up a defensive posture, rushing over to the crib to pick up Harry and then sinking to the floor, rocking him in her arms as tears streamed from her face. She did see his wand following her, but he, too, was unwilling to put down his burden, and so they just glanced at each other when either could tear their eyes away from the loved one they held.

Hermione finally sucked in a snotty, miserable breath, fumbling a handkerchief from her sleeve. “Severus, I’m so very, very sorry for your loss.”

His red-rimmed eyes widened in shock that he tried to transmute into rage. “And who the hell are you, to call me that, to offer condolences to… to _me?!”_

She shook her head as she wiped her eyes and nose. This _had_ to be some sort of hell, or purgatory - the venom-imbued sword, having somehow pricked her, ought to have killed her. She supposed it could be a dying dream - though she’d have preferred the sort in which one’s memories flash before their eyes than the sort that engendered guilt about tragedies that happened when one was only a sodding _infant_. 

Maybe, though, _maybe_ it was a real - real, and a fucked up magical mishap of epic proportions she’d have to make some quick decisions about how to handle, because fucked up? Wasn’t really strong enough, if she were actually where she appeared to be.

Right now, on the off chance it mattered, Hermione Granger let her compassion drive. 

“Chuck me the nappies from over by you, will you? There’s a bag, you see it? It’ll have a kit in.”

He looked at her, startled. She looked at him, expectant and telegraphing her diminishing patience.

Finally she sighed testily and gave him a fraction of a glare. “Lily wouldn’t want her son to be orphaned _and_ saddled with a horrible case of nappy rash on the same day, nor would she wish for the care of her lifeless corpse to take priority over the care of her _living_ and traumatized _child_. Give it here, or I’ll revise my decision to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

He blinked twice, and then, slowly, extended the bag over to her, his other arm still cradling the body of Lily Potter.

Hermione nodded and started to unpack what she needed, relieved to see that Harry’s inquisitive green eyes had started to clear. Fuck, if she really _was_ here, there’d be a reckoning for her not having arrived just a few minutes sooner.

As she lay her best friend down on the traveling changing pad, having swept the debris away first, she glanced around, her eyes settling on Snape. “When you’ve left, and presumably reported to Dumbledore and screamed yourself hoarse about how he let this happen, you need to make sure you _close the door_ behind you when you get back to Spinner’s End.”

He just stared at her.

She continued as she fished what she needed from the bag and went to work. “If you don’t, you’ll lose your kitten, and you’ll regret it. Try not to scare the poor thing senseless with your temper, either. Maybe,” she grumbled, figuring out how the bouncing baby Boy-Who-Lived’s romper snapped, “Maybe try _petting_ it instead of breaking everything. Maybe try Dreamless Sleep instead of Ogden’s.”

He’d gone very still, but for the thumb still stroking Lily’s temple, and very, very pale. “Are you a Seer?”

She snorted. “I stormed out of Divination in my first year of it. Drivel. No no, no I’m not. And perhaps you should steer clear of prophecies in the future, anyhow.”

She ignored Snape’s wince and let him falter into crying more softly over his best friend. He looked so fucking young she wanted to comfort him, but that was _not_ going to happen, not tonight. Atonement was necessary and compassion only went so far.

Looking down to her task instead, she realized with a sigh that she’d never thought her relationship with Harry would stoop to literally wiping his bottom for him. It was, however, an awfully cute one. One she’d ruddy well protect with every iota of her life or afterlife or subconscious manifesto of whoever the hell she’d been.

He was trying to reach his chubby little fist to grab a little toy snitch from beneath the bureau. Her mind cleared a little with his eyes diverted toward something harmless, and she looked up.

“Snape, you need to _leave_ . You need to alert the Order. Dumbledore didn’t know the Potters had changed their protocol. Sirius Black will be here soon, and while I hope that the two of you needn’t permanently be schoolyard nemeses, this would _not_ be an ideal night for to bump into him here, wouldn’t you agree?”

Snape snarled. “Sirius Black is the one who-”

 _“No,”_ Hermione cut him off. “No, he’s not. He knew he was being targeted and that everyone would think it was him, so he asked that the Potters change their Secret Keeper to Peter Pettigrew. He’s your rat - well, literally, I suppose.” 

Severus gaped at her. She was snapping Harry back up now, a bit relieved that these were disposable nappies, as she rather thought she shouldn’t be trusted with pins the way her hands were shaking. 

“How… _why_ should I believe you?” Severus asked, his voice breaking over the question. “Why should I leave her… _him…_ with you?”

She smiled slightly, glad he’d seen fit to notice the real priority. “Have a look,” she said, opening her eyes and looking guilelessly into his. “I know you can.”

As he considered, or feigned any pretense he would ever hesitate to invade her thoughts, she braced herself to keep her walls open, and to let him see she was doing it. She remembered… oh, Harry, and history, and the war, and Potions, and the Battle of Hogwarts - and the conversation she had just had with his own portrait.

When he pulled his eyes from hers, he scurried out from under Lily and ran to the window to throw up. When he was done, he leaned on the sill - a funny sight, given that most of the wall other than what supported the window was gone - and goggled at her. He was… so very _not_ her professor, she thought. Her age, but with strong whiffs of the know-it-all self-righteousness of an insufferable 15-year-old still clinging to him. He was gangly and awkward, though she could see he was growing out of it into… well… still being seriously in need of better shampoo but conceivably hot to goth girls, she supposed.

Then she heard the engine and shook her head. “Severus, that’s Sirius. You _have_ to _go_. You have to. Now. I’ve… I’ve seen the memory, I think it was just outside campus. Do you know where to meet Dumbledore?”

“Yes,” he murmured, looking down at Lily. 

“I’m very sorry, Severus, but you really, _really_ have to go,” she said, bouncing Harry to keep him calm as he sensed the adult tension in the… well, she couldn’t really still call it a room.

He shook slightly, looking down at the woman who had meant the world to him.

“She would want you to _live_ to protect him and fight another day,” Hermione growled. “Take it from another swotty Mudblood girl who outperformed the Slytherins. And don’t forget about the damned cat. And… when you see Harry again, look at his eyes.”

He looked up sharply. “What?”

She shook her head. “Harry has Lily’s eyes. They’re still a little blue now, but that will change. Any time you want to write him off as being just like his father, I want you to know that even though I will do my utmost to prevent at least some of this history from repeating itself, he’s on track to have as miserable and abusive a childhood as you did. And he’s got Lily’s heart and Lily’s eyes. He will never, would never bully anyone as those boys did you. He will _not_ grow up with an inflated sense of himself, but rather being told he’s so small… well, no he _won’t_ , but it won’t change him a whit, I know it.” She shook her head. “Eyes. Compassion. Ability to see the beauty and strength in unlikely places.” She swallowed a sob for the boy she knew, the one who’d never be, or never be the same to her, before she could continue, irritably stabbing at her eyes with the least soggy corner of her hanky. “ _Those_ are the characteristics I want you to keep in mind, Severus Snape, because I have a feeling that, even now that I’ve thrown a wrench in, you _will_ have an impact on this child’s life.”

He looked at her as if she were frightening. She found, on reflection, that she approved.

Then, he started to turn. 

“ _Do not_ forget about the kitten!” she called to his Disapparating form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm dying to know how it compared with your hopes and expectations, if you have a moment to comment, dear reader.


	8. Remembrances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me so long, and I do hope you enjoy it. The world's gone mad but I'll try to keep up with publishing better.

Hermione looked down at Harry, who was gurgling in wonder at his play - which involved his chubby little hand pulling her curls straight then letting them spring back, over and over. He was surprisingly gentle, and somehow it broke her heart a little more for him. 

God, she had never wanted to see this. She knew, years and years later, he would remember, but for now… he had a small child’s ability to forget. She remembered him  _ wanting _ to let the Boggart remind him more and more of what his parents had said, before the end. She gritted her teeth for the second time in what, to her, was the same evening, and  _ promised  _ herself that this time she really  _ would not cry _ .

And then, impulsively, she fished something out of her bag with a summoning charm, the sound of the engine still not quite near enough. 

“Hallo, Harry, I’m Hermione. Can you say Hermione?”

He looked at her, awed, his little mouth a round  _ o _ . 

She shrugged. “Yes, well, people are always telling me it’s difficult, but I know you’ll get it eventually. You see, you’re my best friend, Harry, and I’m going to make sure you’re alright now. Only, I’m going to put you down just a tick because… because I think, later, this might mean something important to you.

And, sighing, she used delicate slicing hexes and, for James, a summoning charm to gather locks of each of his parents’ hair, plaiting them together with sticking charms at the ends and putting them in the locket that had once belonged to Regulus Black. The locket had recently been left to her by Kreacher, his Regulus’s doting House Elf. As she closed the locket, she considered just putting it on Harry’s neck immediately, feeling like… like it was  _ important _ , somehow, for him to have them with him. 

Then she considered his propensity for getting into near-fatal trouble even as a much older young wizard and decided she’d hold onto it for him. 

He watched her, standing and holding on to the rail across the wall of his crib, still fascinated. 

“This is for you, Harry, once you’ve reached the stage when you can handle it safely and responsibly. You’ll… you’ll understand. I don’t know if I’ll still be here then, but I’ll leave it with… oh, I don’t know, Minerva maybe, if it looks like I won’t.” 

She sighed, then set about chucking the diaper bag and all the other baby clothing and accoutrements she could salvage - including his cot, which looked antique - into her beaded bag. 

She looked down at Lily sadly as she stepped past her reclining form. “I hope, someday, I have a family I love as much as you did yours - I’m so, so sorry that it was taken from you so soon,” she murmured, stooping to empty some low drawers. 

She almost choked up to find the tiny toy broom, which she eventually coaxed into the bag - it was as if  _ all  _ brooms hated her, even the toys - along with any stuffies and suchlike hanging about. 

She’d picked up Harry, who’d begun to grow restless again, just after she thought she’d taken whatever she could and stuffed the bag back into her pocket, and was bouncing him on her hip singing the patently absurd Hogwarts school song when Sirius blazed up the stairs.

_ Damn _ . She thought, briefly, as their eyes widened at the sight of each other.

“You’ve Muggle girls in bikinis up with permanent sticking charms all over your room,” she blurted out as quickly as she could. “And you loved the Potters because they were your chosen family. Harry is your godson and you’re livid that Pettigrew sold him and Lily and James out. You’re… Padfoot, and so help me  _ God _ , Sirius, if you leave here in pursuit of Peter Pettigrew today, you’d better hope the Aurors and Dementors find you before I do,  _ not _ that they could, because I do  _ not _ want Hary to grow up a ward of Petunia  _ sodding  _ Dursley again, and he may yet if you don’t stay put and bloody well listen to me now.”

She took a deep breath, taking in the young, storm-like man’s shock and trying to slow her next words. “I’m a friend. And if my  _ bona fides  _ still aren’t sorted to your satisfaction, you’ve a…” she paused to roll her eyes, blushing furiously, “fuck am I kidding, em, sorry Harry, but I’m sure every girl your age in Wizarding Britain knows about that birth mark.” 

He blinked and looked puzzled instead of poised to kill for a moment while she shook her head to clear the image of an older version of this wizard running up the stairs of Grimmauld Place with his towel around his hair rather than his ass. 

“Em… you can have Dumbledore use Legilimency on me,” she finally mustered, “or, or ask me questions, but do  _ not  _ bloody well move from this house, Sirius, or I’ll have your guts for garters for what it’ll do to this child.”

He still looked at her suspiciously. And she let herself look at him a bit. 

The Legend of the Devourable Young Sirius Black had not been exaggerated, it seemed. He was all pale and raven and roiling gray in rangy, graceful lines, clad in punked out chrome glints over black denim and leather, and his face would incinerate the guilty and make angels double-check to see if the Morningstar had actually fallen all the way to hell.

And he was teetering in taut indecision at the top of what was left at the stairs, clearly calculating the various stratagems by which he could safely separate his godson from this unknown and extremely confusing witch - not to mention whether, indeed, he should.

She sighed, half delirious in a wave of sudden shock and exhaustion, even as she continued to bounce Harry. “Merlin but you look good before Azkaban has more than a decade to chew on you.”

_ That _ certainly drew him up short - he’d started to take a step, until she’d said that. 

Very well, blurting it would be, then. 

“Em. I’m from the future by the way, and you should summon Remus, because if you two are left to form your own conclusions separately after you let him think you were still the secret keeper, it’ll be murder on you both. Also, you know damn well he’s more sensible than you and the moon’s hardly waxed from new at  _ all...  _ and will you  _ please _ lower your wand because I suspect at present that I’m a faster draw than you, even  _ with  _ a baby on my hip.”

She blazed defiance at him even as she panted to catch her breath and sagged around the shoulders. And while he was heartbroken, and angry, and stalking like a panther, he saw the way she was holding Harry, entirely for his comfort and neither to keep him away from Sirius nor to use him as a shield. So, with a growl, he shot off a Patronus, presumably to find Lupin, and stalked over to her.

“I’ll have my godson, now,  _ witch _ ,” came his low, velvety voice, unmarred yet by years of howling and screaming in vain.

She shrugged and handed Harry over, making sure that Sirius saw that she was tucking her wand up her sleeve as she did so.

He looked down at the little boy in his arms with storming gray eyes, occasionally darting a glance to her. 

Then he positively  _ fumed _ when Harry, whose favorite he’d  _ always  _ been, started reaching again for  _ her  _ hair. He adjusted his hold and bounced from his knees some, but looked at her strangely and kept the child to himself while resentment flashing across his face.

“I’m sorry,” he finally ground out, “But I haven’t had the pleasure.”

Her hand flew up to cover a little gasp as she winced at her own… awkward... self-introduction, “Em, sorry. This… em, I don’t know if there’s even etiquette.” She took a deep breath and tried to start over. “My name’s Hermione Granger. Pleased to meet you.” She looked at his wary eyes as he bounced Harry, who was still reaching for her, on his more distant hip. “And I’m… Godric, Sirius, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, then looked down at Harry, who was cooing, smitten eyes on Hermione’s bobbing corkscrew curls. Then he looked back to her. “Gryffindor, then?”

She rolled her eyes and then, after a moment that made him step back in alarm, fished the hilt of the sword from her bag to show it to him. “Yes.”

Marginally, he seemed to relax, looking at her more thoroughly - though what came out of his mouth was, “It must have been Riddle.”

She sighed, drooping. “Yes.”

He shook his head, looking the sort of exhausted that she remembered feeling during all those months in the tent. “How did Harry…?” He faltered, shaking his head. “Did  _ you  _ save him?”

She tried to smile, shaking her head as tears filled her eyes despite her. “Em, I’m sorry,” she stammered, fishing a handkerchief from a pocket. “No, I didn’t get here until after it happened. No, Lily…  _ Lily  _ sacrificed herself for Harry. She… she had a chance to live if she gave him up, as someone close to Voldemort had asked she be spared, but she wouldn’t do it. And that invoked some incredibly powerful protective magic.”

She shifted forward a little, and he automatically stepped back, putting his body between her and Harry. She smiled in earnest, though tears still streaked her cheeks. “Good. You keep doing that for him and I may learn to tolerate you yet.”

He scoffed at her, looking over to Harry and then back. 

“May I?” she asked, gesturing to the infant, who was fussing because she was no longer in his line of sight. “Please, may I? It’s… it has to do with what happened.”

Slowly, Sirius turned Harry back toward her, watching her for any sudden motion. Harry, of course, was a font of sudden motion, groping up for Sirius’s little silver stud earring and then again for her hair. 

She slowly leaned forward to part the inquisitive child’s fringe on his forehead, revealing an angry red scar. “That’s… that’s from a Killing Curse, Sirius. Voldemort cast it at him, but it rebounded, and Harry  _ lived _ .”

Suddenly, her eyes widened.  _ “Shit.  _ Where are Alice and Frank Longbottom?”

He blinked at her. “They’re in hiding, just as… oh sweet Merlin’s sagging left buttock, alright, I hear you.”

She shook her head vehemently. “Your cousin Bellatrix and friends are going to hear what happened here tonight and go after them - not sure when other than  _ after  _ James and Lily died. They… they have to go to… to Hogwarts? I can’t think of anywhere else, and I don’t know who their Secret Keeper may have been or even if that person was involved in how they were found, but they’re in danger. They can… they can kip in the Room of Requirement or something, the castle’s more than half empty anyhow, there’s room, and under…” she sighed, “Under Dumbledore’s nose, they’ll be safe, but until the Lestrange brothers, Bellatrix, and Barty Crouch-” 

“Barty  _ Crouch?”  _ Sirius repeated incredulously.

“Junior!” Hermione said, glowering and picking Harry up out of his arms. “Barty Crouch Junior. Senior’s a shit dad, okay?” She raked her hair back, and then, immediately seeing Harry’s look of impending tantrum, hastily shook a few curls back forward for him to play with. “Until they’re all put away the Longbottoms won’t be safe. No work, no nothing, they have to hide, and they have to follow a different plan. We should… we should probably do something else to lure their would-be torturers out”

Sirius groaned. “You… would have gotten on well with Lily.” He shot off two more Patronus charms. “Look, Dumbledore should be here, and…”

“OOOoOOooOH NO!” The sobbing roar cut off any further conversation. “He didn’! He didn’! Oh, no, poor little babbee, Harry, oh, oh, no!”

They heard wails from below and both looked down immediately. Hermione shook her head. “Dumbledore sent Hagrid to pick Harry up and you… let him have your motorbike and went off to your doom. That’s what happened the first time around, but we  _ must  _ do something different”

Sirius looked like he was stewing as he gazed sidewise at her. “I was just thinking that that’s what I should do.”

Hermione shook her head vehemently. “Do  _ not _ , Sirius Black, you stay right by this child! So help me, if I have to rescue your ass from a tower from a Hippogriff’s back again, I’ll-”

He cocked his head, “Really?”

She shook her head, looking out the window, “When I was 13, I think, yes, and I  _ hate _ flying.” She stuck her head out and looked to the newcomer on the scene while Sirius helplessly sputtered about the impossibility of hating flying. “Hagrid, hello, my name’s Hermione, I’m here with Harry and Sirius, and we’re coming down the stairs now. Don’t try to come up, the structure’s quite damaged, alright?”

She wasn’t at all sure she’d been heard over the sobs. 

She looked back to Sirius. “Would you go first, and I’ll hand him to you over the gap?”

He looked at her strangely again, then nodded. “As you wish.”

She stiffened a moment then nodded, marching out to the landing, trying not to look at Lily again.


	9. Green and Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make it up to you for taking so long the last time.

Sirius decided he should listen to Hermione after watching her cast a quick Impervious on her own ribcage and then charge into Hagrid’s arms to hug and comfort him. She was still in there, somewhere, murmuring. “There there… oh, Hagrid, you mustn’t blame yourself, only Voldemort’s at fault for this, I know it’s very very sad, I’m so so sorry.” He listened, bouncing his godson and roiling with the feeling he’d been robbed of any outlet for his rage and misery and guilt.

Lily had always told him to take deep breaths to control his temper, so he tried. He  _ tried _ . Harry seemed to think it was some new form of game, and cooed, which helped. He had… he had responsibilities, now. Fuck,  _ he _ had  _ responsibilities  _ now. He would have to… 

_ Deep breaths,  _ Sirius, she said in his memory.  _ In, and out. In, and out. _

Sirius shook his head. It would take a great deal of firewhisky and perhaps some very spirited sexual gratification before he could sleep again, deep breaths be damned. He’d been a fool and two of the people he loved most in the world, who had always helped him not go off half-cocked, who helped him stay good and be kind, who helped him not be all the demons who whispered to him, had died, and he… he should have prevented it.

❧

Sirius stirred at the soft “pop” of Apparition as Remus arrived. It happened just as Hermione was starting to slowly extract herself from Hagrid’s arms to introduce herself to the half-giant. The werewolf looked … gray and thin and threadbare somehow, though still tall and beautiful in all the light ways Sirius himself would always be dark. He shone, even through the exhaustion and grief. 

It had been far too long.

So, Harry still in his arms, Sirius stumbled over and swept his dearest living friend into a hug, sandwiching Harry between them as both men wept and the infant, nonplused, tried again to grab at his godfather’s ear. 

❧

Hermione, once she’d settled Hagrid and told him he should likely take the seat of the bike, and she’d enlarge it, walked over to see… to see  _ Remus  _ with Sirius and Harry.

It was like a punch to the gut. She stumbled and held on to a broad wood beam that had once supported the cottage’s upper floor, watching the two men cry around their best friends’ child, who was looking between the two with exasperated impatience and gnawing on his little fist.

Remus has always been… well, she’d always had the sense that, if they’d been closer in age and he hadn’t been her professor, they would have been friends - friends in all the ways she never really had been with anyone in her own class, the way she sometimes wondered if she might have had had she been sorted into Ravenclaw. She’d never admired anyone more, and didn’t think she’d ever known anyone else so like her. 

Perhaps, she thought, if this wasn’t all some dying daydream or punitive afterlife, she could right some wrongs. Part of how she’d tried to build trust for the werewolves in her study in the Department of Mysteries had been by learning to brew Wolfsbane Potion and setting up free distribution and sponsorship for it. She knew it didn’t even exist here, yet - that invention would come in the mid- to late-eighties. She could find most of the ingredients in the Forbidden Forest, if they still grew where they had in her time, and if they didn’t, well, she carried her fortune with her, which might not have been her  _ first  _ choice, but a witch with a ten year Gringotts ban who won an Order of Merlin, First Class, had to do  _ something  _ with the galleons. 

Remus already looked sad, but not beaten. Scarred, but not badly - not that it had ever looked ill on him. And his hair was blonder, his shoulders broader, his posture, straighter. It was… strange, but beautiful, to be transported to witness this moment that… well, had  _ never happened. _

She was going to have to have a rather strange talk with Dumbledore, she suspected. 

First, though, she stepped timidly toward them and cleared her throat. Remus had his wand leveled at her faster than she could see him move - she’d have been disappointed at anything less, though, and had expected it. His green eyes shot through with yellow as he pressed the wand’s tip to her jugular and backed her into the beam upon which she’d just leaned. 

“Who are you?” he said, his voice a growl. 

Sirius was already putting a hand gingerly on his shoulder. “Remus, she’s… I think she’s alright, she’s who told me to send for you, just listen to her a moment, will you?”

Hermione blinked, her hands raised to show they were empty, her head tilted up to spare herself the worst of the wand’s sharp jab. “My name is Hermione Granger,” she rasped, licking her lips and panting in the fear no foresight could prepare her for while pinned under his feral gaze. “Em, You’re Remus John Lupin. I’m… I’m so sorry about your loss, Remus. We… were friends, in the future, and… em…” She searched her recollections for some fact to establish trust. “Well, I suppose your father’s still alive for me to scream at for being a hidebound bigot, now? Because  _ that  _ might be worth being thrown back most of my lifetime if this isn’t just some dying fantasy.” The pressure eased slightly as Sirius barked a half-laugh, half-sob, and Remus blinked at her in confusion. “Em. You… you gave me chocolate after I first met a Dementor, and you had  _ nothing _ , and you were among the best professors I ever had. Em, and I… I helped heal you, after the moons.” The pressure returned, as did the yellow that flooded his eyes. Hermione squeaked. “There’s a potion, Remus, one that can help you, and I can brew it, you can stay yourself when you change, I can help you, please, you were… you are a _ friend,” _ she rushed, her voice breaking.

Slowly, Sirius shaking his head in his peripheral vision, Remus lowered his wand, voice smoothed when he eventually spoke. “I… am very interested in what Dumbledore will make of you.”

She nodded, trying to catch her breath and massaging her throat. Lupin frowned at the bruise he had left there and, extending his hand without his wand, brushed it, muttering “ _ Episkey” _ as fingers grazed the spot. He waited a moment before nodding in satisfaction - presumably that the mark had healed - and then returned his just-green gaze to her eyes. “I apologize. You must realize, though, that this is very suspicious. Given his tendencies, that Sirius seems to have decided to trust you so quickly is… odd. I suspected some enchantment.”

She shrugged and reached for Harry, who was leaning toward her. Remus looked startled when Sirius handed him over. “I get it. The second war was even worse.”

Both men blinked and went very still. She shook her head. “We have to go. Sirius, I… well, I can’t imagine anyone wants to leave  _ anyone  _ else alone right now, so I suspect we should cast an extension charm on both the sidecar and the bike itself then sort who’s sitting where. It’s not safe here anymore. We have to get Harry to Dumbledore - and… well, he allegedly slept well as a baby, so I suspect he’s going to need to sleep and have a good feed soon, and we can’t care for him here, anyhow.”

They all looked wistfully around, biding the crumpled little cottage farewell. Hermione resolutely refused to look again at her best friend’s father and doppelganger, James, while Remus and Sirius stooped to pay their respects and smoothed closed his eyes. After a moment, she left them to it, muttering, “ _ Please _ just both come out after,  _ please, please, please _ don’t do anything stupid, for Harry.”

And then she walked out to see to the charms for the bike.


	10. Sidecar, Up

The Hogwarts Groundskeeper had taken a Portkey to the Village, arriving several streets away, but apparently the Order hadn’t dared add any unauthorized magical transit signatures to this area before his reconnaissance had been done for fear that they might taint future investigation. He’d been intended to escort any survivors overland several miles and await contact - but now this unanticipated and more expedient option presented itself and Hermione wasn’t feeling particularly patient.

Sirius arrived outside just in time to shriek and lunge between her wand and his bike, tying his hair back with a ratty red rubber band and muttering through the extension incantations himself. Apparently, _Sheena_ (the motorbike) was particular. 

Or at least Sirius was, not that he could find any better solution than what Hermione had already worked out.

Ultimately, Sirius enlarged the bike itself enough for Hagrid to ride astride, and, after Hermione mentioned a carnival she'd attended with a car where riders straddled a lengthwise bench, also implemented that sort of architecture in the sidecar. While Hermione created copies of the single available helmet, Sirius lengthened the sidecar’s chassis until the remaining, smaller passengers could all fit inside. 

“Ooooh, Sheena, yer a right lov’ly wee machine-monster an’ no mistake,” Hagrid said after Sirius showed him how to start the engine, embracing the opportunity to think of anything other than grief with his entire, childlike heart.

“A _punk rocker._ Sheena is a _punk rocker,”_ Sirius muttered through gritted teeth, fumingly stepping over the bench and gesturing for Hermione (holding Harry) and Lupin to get in behind him. They’d decided it would be safest for the wizards to flank the witch and, after Harry’d pointedly refused to let go of her hair, for her keep the baby in her arms.

As she sandwiched herself in, she muttered a dome-shaped _Protego_ over then, wishing that infant safety seats existed for such situations - in the early eighties, no less. 

Harry watched in animated fascination while all this played out, weighing in with the occasional thoughtful “gooo,” or surprised “eh!” It was easier for Hermione, despite her displacement, to try and follow him to a place of curiosity, pointing to things and naming them as they caught his eye, than it was for the Marauders to break from their grief and wariness. She wasn't sure, otherwise, she'd have been allowed to hold the baby rather than just having had her hair cropped - unless this was patriarchical bullshit at work, which was always a strong possibility. 

It was an exciting takeoff, in any event, with Hagrid whooping in glee, Harry following suit, and Sirius’s white-knuckled hands warping the contour of the sidecar body.

“Ms. Hermione… listen,” the half-giant whined over the wind, “I _know_ ye’re from the future and whatnot, but… I’m meant to meet Dumbledore at Privet Drive!” 

“Sorry, Hagrid,” Hermione yelled, wrestling Harry away from peering out over the edge of the car, “But that plan has changed. To Hogwarts, please!”

When Sirius and Lupin, dull-eyed, didn't disagree, she sent a Patronus to a Minerva McGonagall who didn’t know her from Adam, announcing the alteration.

_Well, this will make me popular with Dumbledore_ , she thought, not at all repentant.

❧

It was an interesting ride. 

Hagrid started to speculate, rather poetically given his state of sobriety, that motorbikes were a lot like dragons.

Meanwhile, the others slid into each other through several awkward bumps and turns midair. 

It was clear that Sirius had called … shotgun?... because he wanted to be able to yell directions to Hagrid, who’d never before driven… well, _anything_ not drawn my magic or magical creature. And Hermione caught several things whipping back along the wind, including “Hagrid, the clutch! No, the _clutch!_ That’s the sodding _nitrous!”_ and “Shift the other way, oh god, that gear will be utterly demolished, maybe… maybe I could sit in front of you on the saddle and drive?”

Memorably for all concerned, Sirius somehow helped them recover from a near-disastrous stall when Hagrid attempted a loop-de-loop over Lancaster.

They all screamed (though for Hagrid it was more of a squee) in the sickly steep descent toward Hogsmeade when they neared the castle, even though Hermione tried to persuade them all that magically powered Muggle vehicles could enter the wards. Harry giggled at the weightlessness at first, and then Hermione quickly yanked Sirius’ shoulder to make him turn and take Harry, as she feared otherwise the tiny child would be hurt in the crush. The three adults in the car compressed backwards as Hagrid (perhaps accidentally?) accelerated. 

Hermione found herself packed between a Remus Lupin and a Sirius Black as-yet unspoiled by time and hard living. Her legs wrapped around Sirius’ posterior and hips while Remus’ long thighs surrounded hers to the knee. In a whirl of disbelief, terror, punchiness, skepticism, and grief, she let herself feel a strong back, muscular and broad at the shoulders but tapering to a narrow waist, wedged against her front. Simultaneously, a tall, strong chest, its topography hard and contoured by lean strength, pressed up behind her as her head tucked under the young blonde’s chin. Pinned between the two men, she decided she might as well enjoy being crushed while her stomach faltered and looped in the absence of gravity. 

_Definitely_ the stomach thing was because of gravity, she thought, shimmying slightly to a more comfortable position.

To say nothing of the smell, even though the wind carried it off rather efficiently, alas.

Her eyes drifted closed. Maybe it wasn’t an _entirely_ punitive afterlife, if that’s what this was; they _really_ hadn’t made Gryffindor men like this in her time. _Eat your heart out, Lavender and Parvati_. 

Which, of course, made her remember that Lavender had died, which made her remember everyone _else_ who had died, including Lily and James this very night, before she’d arrived too late to sodding _do_ anything about it, which quickly sobered her with a cold deluge of guilt and the jolt of a hard landing. 


	11. Nice to Meet You, My Old Friends

### HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

They finally sputtered up to the castle door, where an embattled-seeming Dumbledore, looking much as she remembered him, stood holding a tabby cat. He held the cat in a way that indicated professionalism and respect - which is hard when you have to support an animal’s hindquarters. The cat, in turn, looked unusually aloof and severe, even for a cat.

Hermione looked up at them both as she wriggled out from between the world’s headiest bookends, plucking Harry from Sirius’ arms as he started, again, to descend into twitching melancholy and rage. The novelty had worn off and moment of action passed, evidently, and the grimness of the day was again descending. She could see her infant friend starting to worry at his beloved Godfather’s tense energy, and whatever else might be in play, she at least had a little more… _distance_ from this time’s current events.

She carried Harry resolutely up to the professors. “Professor McGonagall,” she said with a nod to the cat, “Headmaster Dumbledore,” she said, gazing up at the man. “I apologize for insisting on a change of plans, but I could not in good conscience let Harry be delivered into the care of his horrible aunt and uncle when other solutions may now exist.”

Sirius looked up, brow furrowed. “I’m meant to be Harry’s guardian, now. That wouldn’t happen.”

Hermione looked around at him before Dumbledore could speak. “Yes, which is why I begged you _not_ to go after Pettigrew, which would have left everyone thinking you sold the Potter's out." Sirius paled and stepped back, too shocked as he contemplated it to speak. "However,” Hermione continued, looking back to the headmaster, “the issue of the protection of family blood remains.”

Albus’s eyes narrowed slightly, a pleasant smile curving his lips. “Fascinating.”

She arched a brow. “Is Legilimency necessary for you to believe me, sir? Or am I doing well enough without?”

He looked at her a moment, then shook his head, gently putting the cat in his arms down. “I think… that old men should avoid unnecessary temptations. Besides, I’ve already spoken with Severus.”

Hermione nodded, even as Sirius snapped out of his horror and sputtered, “Snivelus?! What in the hell does he have to do with this?”

Minerva grew tall into her human form, regarding the unsurprised-looking Hermione, who smiled at her wistfully, curiously. Dumbledore may be the same, but her favorite professor looked much younger and less careworn, though still stern and… at the moment, sad. 

“Harry,” she cooed to her friend, “That’s Minerva McGonagall, your head of house - and perhaps the most formidable witch of our age.”

McGonagall blinked at Dumbledore, who was still looking at Hermione, his expression distant. “Yes, you do share his blood, tenuously, but not by birth. Were you adopted into the family?”

It was her turn to be surprised. “Em, we joked once, before I left the Aurors for the Department of Mysteries about six months ago, about becoming blood siblings. We’d both gotten injured rounding up Rabastan Lestrange and bled all over each other, and since we’d already been family to each other in every way that mattered to us for half our lives, anyway...”

Dumbledore peered at her, his wand flicking silently from his hip through small movements too quick to decipher. She glanced up at him. It was rude to cast spells on someone without their permission, outside of combat. Combat… well, everything was rude _inside_ of combat.

“Please forgive an old man his caution and curiosity, Ms. Granger. I suspect you know that love and intent are powerful forces in magic. I detect that both of those effectively bound you to the young Mr. Potter, perhaps even before the incident of which you speak, but that your bond of blood may be too tenuous to count upon. And…” he blinked owlishly. “Well. It would appear… that the two of you enjoy similar defense against Voldemort due to… ” He trailed off, sagging under the weight of the realization that this child, too, would die. “I… did not realize that was why you were so happy to see him alive, even though, now, I doubt your relationship will be the same.”

Hermione wasn’t sure she could endure getting into horcruxes tonight, so she thought for a moment. “That’s a long story. Harry _did_ die for me.” She glanced down at the bright-eyed infant. “But… he has a way of conquering death.” She looked up, glancing briefly at the headmaster’s wand before meeting his eyes. “Did you know that the Potters are descended from the Peverells, Headmaster?”

He wasn’t blinking now. “How… I'd… _well_ ,” he mused, “I can see we'll have much to talk about,” he murmured, half to himself, as gears clearly whirled in his incredible mind.

Whatever issue she might take with the man’s decisions, Hermione would never kid herself about his intelligence.

Any further conversation was halted as the Longbottoms, young and fully in control of their faculties, ran up the path from the school gate - a sleepy infant in Frank’s arms. 

“Oh, Albus, we heard, and Sirius' Patronus said to come straight here - it’s so _terrible_!” Alice said, throwing herself into Dumbledore’s arms. Frank stood sadly, holding his son close and darting sad glances at the now-orphaned Harry.

Hermione was so exceptionally glad to see them. “Thank goodness you’re here. I don’t think I could take it, if," she faltered, remembering them in the Janus Thickey Ward, "em, if anything happened to the other family the prophecy could apply to.” She turned to stoop to her other old friend’s young eye level, addressing him a moment, “Look at those _cheeks!_ _You_ would have had it all sorted by fifth year, Nev, I’m just sure of it,” she cooed to the blinking child. Straightening, she looked back to his parents again, a genuine if tired smile spreading on her face. “I'm glad Harry will know Neville before school,” she said, sniffling only slightly.

While Alice and Frank gaped between the stranger and the seemingly unruffled headmaster, McGonagall and Sirius both looked at her warily. But all were safe now - ramifications of the Longbottom change to the timeline could be addressed later. 

“Headmaster, you know that I bring… unprecedented intelligence about the enemy and the war. I… well, Voldemort’s _not_ dead, only weakened, but because of the blow dealt his followers tonight and their remaining numbers, it’s imperative that any children to whom the prophecy could possibly apply and their parents all be protected.” She took a breath. She’d looked, but better safe. “I only knew of Neville and Harry. But… if you can keep the Longbottoms safe here, the Death Eaters who attacked them might look for another target, or even attempt to get into the school if their flight here becomes known. I don’t know exactly _when_ they were attacked in my timeline, just after … after Harry’s parents died.”

Dumbledore nodded slowly, glancing at the child trying to hold his head up in her arms. “I think, perhaps, if you wouldn’t mind, Alice and Frank, you could take one of the faculty family apartments for the time being. They’re on the same hall as my rooms, and I trust you’ll be quite safe there. And… well, I do not want to presume, but given your greater current skill and the company young Neville might provide young Harry, here, would you mind taking him with you? He’s… had a very, very long night, and I would see him in good hands.” He looked back at Hermione, eyebrow raised. “I suspect this will be alright with you - especially if I also put certain Order operatives in place to make it look as if the Longbottoms are still elsewhere?”

Hermione nodded rapidly. “I think… I think that would all be wise, yes, particularly if you have a store of Polyjuice potion, which I can’t imagine Severus wouldn’t have on hand in these times.”

Dumbledore was nodding before she had finished naming the potion, and had already shot off several Patronuses by the time she quieted. 

There was a lull, then, as if all concerned were catching their breath, letting their minds come abreast of their new, shared reality.

Then Hermione, rubbing her eyes and visibly starting to sag, glanced up at the headmaster. “Do you not challenge each other’s identities at this time, in the Order?”

Dumbledore smiled. “My dear, I fear everyone here is thinking quite loudly. I’m satisfied all are who they seem, as… unusual as that might be, in at least one instance.”

She nodded, ignoring the flush riding on her own cheeks. She’d have to work hard to improve her Occlumancy. “Alright, then. So… then one of us needs to question you, correct?”

He looked at her as if she should be awarded house points as others blinked at what was either her cheek or their oversight. “Just so. By all means, proceed.”

She bit her lip, thinking. “Who was your first great love, Professor?”

He looked a little sad. “Ah.”

She shrugged, satisfied, while others looked between them quizzically. She’d seen the pictures and knew he’d been both brilliant and beautiful. There were reasons why Dumbledore was uniquely capable of identifying what Tom Riddle might become from early in their acquaintance.

Dumbledore, meanwhile, had taken off his half-moon glasses and was polishing them with a small cloth he’d produced from a pocket somewhere. “And, this is common knowledge, in the future?”

“Not… in such terms, nor when it would…” She paused, searching for words. “Em, not when it would bother you, sir.”

His blue eyes were appraising as the lenses slid back down in front of them. “Hmm. Very interesting.”

It was Frank Longbottom who stepped up, breaking the restive silence that ensued. “Em, we’d be very happy to see to Harry as long as you’d like, Professor, sir. Em.” He turned to Hermione, blushing, “And, er, Miss…?”

Alice stepped up to Hermione with a shy smile. “Hello. I’m Alice Longbottom.”

Hermione ducked her head and placed Harry tenderly in Alice’s extended arms. Despite valiant efforts, he was tired enough now not to fuss much to be in the arms of someone who so radiated maternal goodwill. “I’m Hermione Granger. Good to meet you Alice, and you,” she said, smiling warmly (if exhaustedly) at Mr. Longbottom, “Frank.”

The couple smiled, each in a completely different way that reminded her of another great friend - one who currently lay against his father’s chest, eyes vainly attempting to remain open.

McGonagall broke her silence with a clearing of her throat. “Ahem. Please follow me. The school elves will bring food to your quarters, which I will now show you each to. The faculty has at times been quite a big larger, so you should all be able to stay in staff quarters on the same floor and wing, but … well, it’s been a dreadful night, and the morning will bring much more to do.” 

All nodded and shuffled wearily after the Transfiguration professor into the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, I would like the liberty to move this to an explicit rating. Please let me know if that would affect your readership, in the comments? My sense is that there may be ... steam to blow off and avenues to explore for our intrepid heroine, and while I've done some toning down of what I first wrote in future chapters, I think I trust my initial instinct on them being good for the story.
> 
> Also: how are you all doing? I'm not doing great, but I'm sure I've got a lot more helping me keep going than most. Please hang in there, folks. These are dark and difficult times.


	12. BOOK 3

# Book 3: Into Action


	13. Close Quarters

There really had been enough room, and plenty to spare besides, for at least twice as many battle-weary refugees as marched into the hall beyond the Headmaster’s office. There were other ways out than through the office itself, but none known to any of them - even the Marauder’s Map hadn’t encompassed this area. Minerva pointedly mentioned this as something to discuss at a later time and no one questioned their host’s desire to contain the mess that was their presence at the school.

Hermione felt simultaneously anxious and relieved when the door closed behind the Longbottoms and Harry. She drew in a long, shaky breath, and let it out as slowly as she could force herself to. She’d gone through quite a lot in order to emancipate herself from an early surrender to parenthood. It was strange that she’d landed here, where it might effectively be imposed on her in ways she couldn’t imagine, right away.

_ Thank Merlin for the Longbottoms, _ she thought,  _ at least for tonight. _

Her rooms were between Remus and Sirius, and included a small study and an ensuite with a generous bath. Someone had known she was a Gryffindor, though she couldn’t remember mentioning it - the bed clothes and decor of the room reminded her strongly of the tower, which was comforting. 

The silence, however, was not. 

And so it was that Hermione Granger, who’d bantered and barged her way through the utter demolition of the past as she knew it in the course of a couple hours, ended up sitting wrapped in a throw blanket under her borrowed desk, her head between her knees, trying to stop shaking and hyperventilating and cursing herself for not carrying calming draughts. 

She could hear the floorboards creaking in a repetitive rhythm to one side of her room as someone paced, and hard, wet impacts and little grunts from the other, so she didn’t imagine the remaining Marauders were doing all that well, either. Once again, she was flanked by the two.

From the babies, mercifully, there was silence - although she wouldn’t be surprised if Alice and Frank cast silencing charms on their rooms to keep the sound in as a matter of course. They seemed almost as eager to be unobtrusive as Neville - odd for Aurors, but perhaps not for close family (and probable cohabitants?) of Augusta Longbottom.

Not that the relative peace was stopping the racing of her mind or breath as she thought, tugging herself into  _ this  _ moment - this moment, which had been the past but was now somehow the present - and trying,  _ trying _ to calm down.

❧

She’d nearly returned to breathing normally and the tremor had decreased when there was a furtive knock at her door.

She looked up, and then with a deep inhalation to gather herself, went to answer it. She only opened the door a crack until she saw who was standing there and let it swing to shoulder-width.

Leaning on his elbow against the door frame, a just-opened bottle of firewhisky dangling from one hand, was Sirius Black.

She looked up at his dark, wild eyes. They were red rimmed and, she saw, the knuckles of the hand holding the bottle were bruised and bleeding.

Godric, he was so young. 

“Company?” he asked, his tone low and dark and unambiguous.

That had escalated quickly.

She looked at him guardedly. “And if I give it?”

He shrugged, his face saying he’d already won. “I don’t go off and do something rash.”

She scrutinized his expression. He oozed wolfish hunger, grief, and a little entitlement, but no… worrying entanglement.

Hermione, who’d been meaning to try something well and truly ill-advised ever since she’d extricated herself from her disastrously short-lived marriage, paused only another moment before stepping aside, opening the door wider to let him in. 


	14. Something Well and Truly Ill-Advised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter contains explicit sexual content and rough sex.
> 
> \--also explicit consent, though, so. 🙌

He strode into the room with a predatory gait, clearly still buzzing with anger and misery and the will to break things. 

Well. She could help him with that, she supposed. She had always wanted to sublimate while angry. Ron had never understood _. _

She took the Ogden’s from his hand as he walked past on his survey of the unexplored territory of her quarters, and he turned to watch her take a long, slow swig, throat bobbing several times under the upended bottle before she offered it back, wrinkling her nose a touch at the burn. 

He took it, his eyes on hers as he took his own long pull.

Then, he put the bottle down on the nightstand and stepped into her space.

She looked up at him, curious, as he looked down at her, fascinated.

And then he kissed her.

She’d have to call it that, for all it involved growling and teeth and someone getting a cut lip. 

He threw her on the bed and eased her flats off her feet, which still hung over the edge, then paused and nipped at her arches before whipping her jeans and knickers from her with only one button unfastened and a hard, quick tug.

As she watched him stretch his arms up to throw off his battered black t-shirt, she realized she’d almost certainly been doing this wrong. 

He liked her eyes on him, she saw. He watched her watch  _ him  _ as he unfastened his black leather belt, covered all over in chrome studs, and then as he undid the zip on his close-fitting black jeans. 

She made sure to give him her rapt regard, propping herself up on her elbows and watching with darkening eyes. She’d already taken off her sweater. She had a feeling he’d be upset if she disposed of her blouse and bra herself, and more upset if he didn’t have her undivided attention. 

He was wearing nothing under his jeans.

She shuddered as he growled, pulling her hips to the edge of the bed and flipping her onto her stomach. She gave a little gasp and, if his low, dark chuckle was any indication, he enjoyed it.

He skimmed his hands up from the backs of her knees over her buttocks, spreading wide her most intimate areas to his gaze with a little guttural huff of approval. She shuddered and involuntarily thrust her hips back against him when she felt his teeth sink into the swell of her hip, biting not quite gently. He followed this with a lick and a small string of other bites before he buried his face in her folds - just long enough to drag his tongue over the length of her opening and sharply suck at her swollen clit. Then, he bit her other hip, hard.

She cried out, shocked to hear her own pleasure.

Looking over her shoulder to see Sirius’s eyes light up at her response, she knew he was surprised, too - and enthralled. With a little moan, he shook his head a little, his teeth holding fast, before letting go. He struck a sharp slap to the area he’d bitten - sending a stinging rush through her sore, marked flank just as the blood and sensation rushed back in. 

She shuddered and fell, face pressing into the mattress as she cried out and helplessly arched herself up to him, trying to grind back against him.

But he danced out of the way. “Tsk, tsk,” she heard as he yanked her up by her hair, pulling her to her feet with her back pressed against him. 

She heard a wanton little mewl arise, involuntary, from her own lips as she felt the frustrating jab of his heavy, hard erection to the small of her back, but she was suspended, standing, by his fist in her hair, all gathered at the crown of her head, her toes barely touching the ground to relieve the ache.

He lazily raked his free hand down the front placket of her blouse, ripping free buttons and cloth alike as his fingers moved, before grabbing the back of her collar and yanking the remains of the garment off her shoulders and then her arms.

It only took him an instant to pop open the hooks at the back of her sheer gold bra with the same hand, then to reach around and grasp it by the center gore, pulling it away from her chest and off her arms. Rather than simply throw it, though, he pulled it behind her, and by the sound of it, lifted it to his nose to smell it.

“Bloody  _ hell _ ,” he murmured, and she heard another long inhalation.

And then, dropping her hair, he pushed her roughly onto the bed again, grasping her hips and holding them at the edge before pushing her torso down into the coverlet.

“Do you want this, Hermione?” he rasped, his low voice taunting as he leaned down to her ear, his stiffness sliding along her slick lips teasingly. “You can tell me to fuck off, and I’ll go.”

She snarled at him, pushing up onto her toes and adjusting the cant of her hips until,  _ there.  _ Before he understood, she thrust herself back over him, taking away the beginning he’d wanted her to beg for and swallowing him into her greedy center.

He cried out, “Fuck!" He shook and only half voluntarily started thrusting in and out of her, still scrambling to reconcile himself with her theft of his initiative - but clearly unable to be properly mad about it. "Godric,  _ fuck _ ,” he groaned, punctuating his syllables with thrusts, “fuck, fuck, oh,  _ fuck _ , woman, I’m going to fuck this fucking castle down around you,  _ fuck _ , you mad, mad,  _ mad  _ little vixen!”

Into the counterpane, she smiled, then turned her head so that he could hear her clearly enunciated reply. “With claims like that, I’ll hex you if you leave me able to walk in the morning.”

She cast a quick, wandless silencing charm - perhaps a bit late - as he roared and pounded into her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... that what y'all wanted?


	15. A Hand to Your Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Explicit sexual content

Dawn found them floating together in the center of the room, their hair rippling in little air currents. The side of his nose was pressed to the side of hers. They’d fallen asleep with their arms around each other - with her legs still around him - and his cock, which had refused to go entirely back to soft in her presence, still buried inside the clench of her. 

That their slow rotation sometimes left them upside down seemed to have negligible impact on their bodies, which at present only gravitated toward each other. 

Sirius woke first, stirred to life by the heat of a beam of sunlight that happened to warm his back. It felt exquisite, after the soreness she’d worked him into. 

He pulled back enough to see the entirety of her face, peaceful in repose, and think.

The night before, he’d lapped whisky off the dip of her spine at the small of her back, just deep enough to hold a swallow. He’d drunk it from her navel, then from her mouth after he poured it onto, into her. But they hadn’t gotten through the bottle, because she’d proven the headier intoxicant - soaring above the degeneracy he’d thought he’d wanted to lose himself in and tugging him to some higher plane with her. 

Sirius hadn’t bothered to remember the name of any woman he’d fucked since Marlene, he thought, watching her curls float around her in a shining cloud. Marlene had been the one he’d always come back to, but she wouldn’t have tolerated half of what  _ this _ woman had enthusiastically consented to, would have rolled her eyes instead of giving more of herself when he showed the weakness of  _ need _ . 

_ Hermione  _ had pulled him to a point of forgetting everything but her, fomenting him into greater abandon at every turn, then let him discover the weight of everything all over again only to cry himself into exhaustion in her arms - then wake to start again.

He wasn’t alright. Nothing was alright. Nothing had  _ ever _ been alright, he thought, scratching absentmindedly at the old, old burn scars dotting his upper arm.

He had a strong sense, though, that she knew the way to alright, would recognize the opportunity to make  _ alright _ happen, but had known depravity and depredation and war well enough she’d learned to roll defiant in the gutter.

She’d certainly rolled him.

Thinking about it, of course, had made him harden again. 

“Mmmmm,” she whined, stretching her arms as she woke to the little half-voluntary rolls of his pelvis. “Yes, please.”

His eyes fluttered closed and he shuddered before he lifted his hands to her hips and worked her weightless form over himself. Easier than his own hand wanking in the shower. God, he’d always wanted to try this spell. Yet, after one interesting foray in the absence of gravity… 

She frowned, cracking her eyes open in the bright sunlight with a pout. “Get your weight on me.”

She may as well have plucked it from his mind; he wanted her squirming beneath him.

He looked down at her, not slowing as he kicked off the nearest heavy object - a wardrobe - and sent them floating through the open bed curtains. 

_ “Finite,”  _ she murmured, not scrupling to halt his spell without warning. 

They both moaned as his weight came down on her, sending them gently bouncing back from the bed through two reverberations before they were more or less only moving under volition.

He could tell they were both sore, but Merlin, it was the best sort of soreness.

He reached down to hook his hands under her thighs, dragging her legs up and pinning her knees to her chest. She shuddered at the depths he hit, then, when he resumed their congress with slow, hard thrusts, each grinding against her cervix with a delicious ache before it receded to be followed by the next.

“Tell me, Hermione,” he asked, “Are you typical of women of your time?”

She burst out laughing, only to look up and see he was… serious. “Em, no.”

He didn’t know whether to celebrate his luck or lament that she wasn’t a sign of things to come.

“So not every woman, twenty years from now, would do all these devilish things with me?”

She looked up at him, smiling and biting her lip as she rolled her hips with his. “I’ve never, like this, before.”

He blinked in surprise. God, that little flash of innocence in her pinking cheeks was about enough to murder him, layered over this debauched, delicious creature.

She laughed again, seeing his thoughts flash over his face. 

And so, to bring her attention back to the important thing -  _ him _ \- he put a wicked little twist at the end of the next thrust, watching with satisfaction as she shuddered and moaned, all humor suddenly held in abeyance.

She wasn’t quelled long, though. “Since I don’t know if we’ll do this again -”

“We will,” he promised.

“- since I don’t know that we’ll do this again,” she repeated, “I’ll let you try another.”

He looked down at her thoughtfully as she stretched into his strokes with every sign of relishing them. “Anything I want?”

She smiled. “I imagine so, especially if you’ll let  _ me  _ read this naughty little book of yours at some point. I’m very curious,” she said, leaning up to kiss him for a long, beguiling moment before falling back and looking up at him expectantly. “Well,” she panted, smug with her hair hallowed riotously around her, “let’s see what kink you conjure next, then.”

He grinned down at her. “No.”

She looked up, surprised and a little coy. “No?”

He shook his head. “Next time.”

She frowned. “Sirius, I-”

He cut her off with a devouring kiss, and kept kissing her to the end.


	16. From There to Onward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my concern at the start, thinking about pulling this back to M when it started to go all E on me, was that my compulsive need to thoroughly do justice to intimate interludes could derail plot. And I worry making this one multiple chapters might have done that - and would like to hear in the comments if that's your experience of this work or not, because this isn't (just) a smut fic. 
> 
> My plan moving forward is to make chapters longer so that something like this might have some internal breaks but not span multiple postings, because I think that would help me with this concern. I'm not going to retroactively restructure the recent bits, though. ANYWAY. Hope that seems reasonable, and be apprised that we will exit the boudoir today (though I have no doubt it will be revisited).

Breakfast appeared in the room around ten, and they roused themselves to eat before taking showers. Hermione chased Sirius out of hers when he tried to sneak in, but he managed to lean forward enough to apply his lips to her left nipple in a long, hard suck, and she was worried, desperately worried (but also slightly hopeful), that she’d let the dog follow her home.

She wasn’t a panacea, though, and her very bloody-minded contempt about the timeline ensured she knew she’d be increasingly ordinary here. Every move she made guaranteed the future would be less predictable for her, and that would make her… just another Order member, ultimately. And she  _ knew _ that no one held Sirius Black’s interest long; that was legend, well-documented in anecdata from interviews, letters, and diaries from the first war and before it. There was no way she’d prove captivating to the him as he was now, all sex and leather and dangerous eyes, once she had faded into being unremarkable and relatively useless. 

Well, not  _ useless _ . She’d still be Hermione Granger, and  _ her  _ Draco and Minerva had continued to remind her that that was rather a lot all its own for so long now that it had started to make a dent.

_ Aaaaah, hell.  _ She realized she was going to have to try to get to Narcissa. If she could keep Lucius from getting off on the  _ Imperius  _ defense… well… it might be possible.

She kept having to slap Sirius’ hands away as she tried to get dressed, eventually settling to just pull on a black wrap dress with polka-dots, which fell to her knee and had long sleeves. She figured it looked reasonably good with no underthings (he kept vanishing them back into her bag as soon as she produced them), and she thought it would look fairly normal in most marginally recent time periods with her bulky burgundy cabled cardigan. 

Looking from the Scottish November out the window to her bare calves in the mirror, she shrugged then fished some spare yarn left over from the sweater and some needles from the little beaded bag. It was a simple enough thing to enchant a couple matching leg warmers into being within a few minutes. She was fairly certain they were legitimately an 80s thing. 

When he kept coming up with reasons they shouldn’t leave the suite yet, she relented and let Sirius have her again. He’d complained he still had some morning to make her unable to walk, which she supposed was a fair point, and tried another of his sex spells as he took her against the wall, clothed. It turned out that  _ Geminio Phallus,  _ a hybrid human transfiguration/charm, was a thing that existed.

And even  _ one  _ of him had been quite a lot.

She allowed she was at least a bit wide of gait after, and cast a couple quick cleansing spells before he could stop her opening the door to the hall - where, she knew, he worried the rest of the world would crash down on him again.

She’d never much cared to help others hide from reality. It never ended well.

❧

Hermione brushed past Sirius’s schemes for how they might make it look like they’d come from separate rooms, simply stepping out and pulling him after her. She dropped his hand, though, with a slight frown, once they were past the threshold. He’d seemed worryingly content to hold on.

When they emerged, Remus was sitting in a sort of lounge area at the end of the hall, reading. There were a lot of windows overlooking the lake, here, and the sun was coming in, making his hair glow white, all the shadows of him bumped to maximum contrast in an unearthly way. Which was not to say, she thought, that it was a bad look.

She smiled solicitously at her favorite werewolf, still finding it… a  _ lot  _ harder, for some reason, to see him alive again than it was with anyone else. “Are you holding up alright, Remus?” she asked.

His eyes flicked over her, and over Sirius tagging after her, so quickly she wouldn’t have caught it had she not been expecting it. “The obligatory answer is yes, but I’m afraid my heart wouldn’t be in it,” he said with a shrug. He turned his gaze to Sirius. “And you, Padfoot? Are you feeling better?”

The addressed stood too close behind Hermione, looking down at her shoulder from behind her. “I … have at least worked through some of my frustration.”

Hermione couldn’t help turning her eyes heavenward and shaking her head a little, which made both men laugh. Remus gave a little snort as he tucked a bookmark into the volume in his hands. “Well, Ms. Granger, you are either at least as bad as he is or a saint for putting up with him.”

She shrugged. “Bit of both. Spent too long being too good. Didn’t pan out.”

Remus studied her, his smile fading a bit into a look of frank consideration. “Ah. Yes, that can happen.”

Sirius glanced between them curiously for a moment before he shook his head and sighed, raking his shoulder-length black hair back as he flopped, slumping into the armchair across from Remus’s. “I wonder if Lily would ever have developed a sense of mischief.”

Hermione chuckled a little, shaking her head. “I think … well. Being good had been panning out a bit better for her, and her son… well,  _ my  _ Harry always had a purity to him, even when he was trying to misbehave, which I understand did  _ not _ come from his father. I understand Lily and I were a lot alike in school, though.”

Sirius looked up at her, trying to reconcile  _ that  _ with the last ten or so hours, and Remus simply nodded as she sat in the chair beside his. “I may have been more like her,” the werewolf said, “But I fell in with the wrong crowd.”

Sirius snorted, reaching his foot over to give Remus a half-hearted kick to the knee. “You were near enough,  _ prefect _ , and besides, you loved it.”

Both men smiled only a moment before both their faces fell. Hermione was left glancing between them, knowing there wasn’t anything that would  _ really _ help them through the trauma they’d gone through - nothing short-term, anyway. It would be with them forever. 

Like  _ they’d _ be with  _ her  _ forever, one falling through the veil with a frozen grin, the other the mangled body of a new father lying blank-eyed after the battle. What she hadn’t seen firsthand, she’d shared through Harry’s memories while they worked together to heal. The thought of the ravages of her own war made her feel a bit sullen, too.

Before she could sink too far into that familiar pit, she shook herself. “Right. I’m sure there are things to do. We…” she sighed, “we should check in on Harry, and… and the Longbottoms, and the Order, and… probably also funeral arrangements.”

Both men slumped further. Remus, however, took a few beats and then straightened, saying, “Yeah, alright. Up, Sirius, we’re off to see the Headmaster. And you should call in to work, too.”

Sirius shook his head. “I may have told Scrimgeour not to expect to see me again soon if anything happened to you, Peter, Lily, or James. He’s a bit of an arse but he understood, I think, even if he  _ did _ think we all could more to avert any catastrophe, arrogant old berk. I’m certain the DMLE has been at the house. Hopefully not some  _ idiot _ , though, what with me, Alice, and Frank tied up here.”

Hermione furrowed her brow. “Sirius, are you an  _ Auror?” _

He barked out a laugh, shooting her a wink. “Something you didn’t know? Glad I can catch you off guard after all.”

She frowned a little. “I suppose they didn’t feel like playing up the connection, given what happened where I’m from.”

Remus looked at her strangely. “Really not fussed about throwing your world out the window, are you?”

She shrugged. “Not sure I’m even here. This may be some sort of afterlife or a dying dream, which seems more likely, frankly, than random time travel.”

“Why do you say that?” he said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

“The last thing I remember before I woke up in that wreckage was standing in the headmaster’s office,” Hermione said, “raging at a portrait about how too many sacrifices had been made. Then I somehow cut myself, and as the sword’s lethal, well…”

As she thought about it, she dug in her pocket for her bag and fished out the Sword of Gryffindor. Both men’s eyebrows went up. “Well. I was fairly certain,” Sirius said, “but I guess that settles what house  _ you _ were in.” He blinked. “Didn’t it… was that the original  _ scabbard _ , then?”

She shook her head, ignoring the last question and examining the sword’s hilt, trying to figure out  _ how  _ she could have pricked herself on it. “I don’t know where I’d be sorted anymore, honestly. I was a close call to begin with, then it was a  _ long  _ war, and funnily enough it wasn’t all birdsong and roses after, either.”

Remus was looking at her, frowning. “I’ve never heard anything about the sword being lethal.”

She looked up. “It’s Goblin-made. Imbues itself with anything it encounters that will strengthen it. Harry used it to kill a basilisk.”

Remus paled. “In the war there’ll be basilisks?”

Hermione hemmed a bit, shaking her flat, level hand. “Em, sort of. It’s in the Chamber of Secrets. Voldemort loosed it our second year.”

Both men stared. Hermione continued to examine the sword, oblivious.

Remus was the one who eventually spoke. “I suspect you’re right about checking in with others. There are… many, many questions, and while perhaps a trip to the library might be in order later, I think it’s best we spare you having to repeat the answers only you know.”


	17. Council of War

Eventually, Sirius, Hermione, and Remus knocked and were admitted to Dumbledore’s office. Pomona Sprout and Rolanda Hooch were tucked in a far corner of the lowest level of the impressive room, playing with Harry and Neville. The two boys were toddling around slowly together, holding hands and pulling each other over when either stumbled in their still-early attempts to walk. Of the two, only Neville cried when he fell, but he did so quietly. Hermione fought the urge to go right over and sweep them both into her arms and sob all over them.

As it was, Sprout was reading to them from an illustrated edition of  _ Ronja the Robber’s Daughter _ and Hooch was mischievously trying to distract them with a toy broom not unlike Harry’s. The two women flashed occasional long-suffering but loving glances at each other over their competing efforts. Sprout flushed with happiness as Harry pointed to an illustration and correctly identified a tall green “twee” and Hooch chortled when Neville plunked down on his bottom, feet twisting in indecision between broom and book. Most of the time, Hooch was gazing with a sort of fierce, quiet pride at Sprout.

Hermione barely stopped herself from literally slapping her own forehead, or possibly pumping her fist. She did squeak very slightly, to her unending mortification, before covering her mouth with her hand. 

“Ah, Ms. Granger!” she heard from over her shoulder just before Dumbledore stepped up behind her and patted her back fondly. “Glad to see this world yet holds some happy surprises for you. Won’t you come sit down? I’ve a small meeting room adjoining, and there are others who must be privy the coming conversation.”

Hermione blinked rapidly and followed him, her head swiveling back to take in the scene with the children until Sirius took her by the shoulders and steered her away from an imminent collision with a doorway. 

Startled out of her revery, she looked around a new room.

There was a large, round table made of some warm colored stone with copper inclusions splattered across its surface. Around it were several simple wood chairs, similar to those in most of the classrooms. A carafe of coffee and a large teapot were being handed around, along with a platter of bacon sandwiches and apples.   
  
Frank and Alice were already seated, along with McGonagall, Dedalus Diggle, Alastor Moody, and Arabella Figg. And, of course, Snape.

Hermione could feel the tension that came into the room as Snape, Sirius, and Remus saw each other. The two Marauders, reflexively it seemed, moved between him and Hermione as they approached the table. She saw Snape, who looked very tired, start to reach into his lap, as if to draw a wand. 

So she did the only thing she could think of to confuse them into better behavior; she went right up to sit down next to Snape, on the far side from Sirius and Remus, and gave him a friendly hug right around his stiff, shocked shoulders. 

Then she looked at him brightly as if there were no one else in the room, and asked, “Are you doing alright? 

Haltingly, he broke his gaze away from his old rivals to turn to her, frowning. “No.”

She smiled, rubbing his near shoulder soothingly, as she might have soothed an upset Ron rather than a venomous Severus. To her amazement, he did seem to untense marginally after a moment. “No,” she said, “I don’t expect any of us is.”

Diggle took this moment to speak up, his voice squeaky and joyful. “I am! Better than in ages! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was vanquished, vanquished by Harry Potter! It’s incredible news! Unbelievable! We’re  _ saved! _ ” 

All eyes swivelled to Diggle, but only Figg and, slightly, Moody looked pleased at the same news. It was Minerva who snapped. “Yes, and lost his parents, our beloved friends and stalwart allies, in the process, Daedalus. Not everyone is out rejoicing and setting off unauthorized fireworks today - and several of the foremost mourners happen to be  _ in this room _ , which  _ you _ ought keep in mind.”

Hermione smiled grimly and sat back, letting go of Snape’s shoulder with a final companionable squeeze. “Yes. And it was Lily, not Harry, you should be thanking right now.”

Everyone turned to her in curiosity. She shrugged. “Her self-sacrifice for the child she loved is what made the difference. It will do everyone a great deal of good - but no one more than Harry himself - if that  _ true  _ account is what becomes the common understanding of the wizarding world.”

Snape turned to her, looking uncertain. “While you may indeed be correct, Ms. Granger, the prophecy explicitly-”

“-Is known to two or three individuals now living in its entirety,” Hermione interrupted, “despite widespread speculation and conjecture, and muddling things could protect two children and two still-living parents from retaliation by a very powerful and unscrupled faction.”

Severus looked at her for a long moment and then ducked his head in acknowledgement. “Perhaps you are correct.”

A moment of quiet thought passed before Sirius asked, “Why is  _ he _ here?” at the same time Moody asked, “Why is  _ she _ here?”

Hermione looked to Dumbledore, knowing his word was likely to be the only currency that would spend here.

He apparently knew this, too. “Professor Snape,” he started, ignoring Sirius’s hiss of disapproval at the title, “Is here as a member of the Order who defected to our side at great personal risk in an attempt to save both those children and their families before Voldemort fell. And,” he continued even as Sirius’s mouth opened to respond, “Ms. Granger is here as a veteran of a second war, which we may be able to prevent if we act wisely on the intelligence she brings us.”

Moody spluttered. “That’s preposterous! This reeks of enemy fabrication! Dumbledore, how have you verified this?”

Dumbledore shrugged. “She foisted rather a disturbing quantity of memories on Severus when they met yesterday in order to establish her legitimacy, and between his adamant insistence that she is both valuable and truthful and the things she has demonstrated insight of, it is the simplest explanation. Oh,” he paused before including an afterthought, “and she’s unskilled at Occlumency enough that some of her thoughts fairly jumped off the page at me upon our meeting.” His blue eyes turned behind their halfmoon spectacles. “Something, I suspect, that  _ you  _ will have to work with her on, Severus.”

Snape bowed his head in assent more graciously than Hermione would have expected, and she shrugged. “Em, I guess that’s sensible, yes.”

Dumbledore gave a decisive nod. “It’s not only sensible but crucial, Ms. Granger. The path you have started down is not a cautious one, and while I would not have advised such a course, the thestral has left the forest, as it were. Protecting your mind from those who would use what you know in order to do evil is of paramount importance. The extant Order members around this table, one and all, have some degree of competence with Occlumency when they bend their minds to the task, but in this art Severus surpasses even myself - which I do not say lightly. It behooves us all that you learn from the best.” 

He looked at her closely to impress the point and she tried very hard not to shrink in her seat, almost completely succeeding. “Alright. We can… well, I suppose we can work out scheduling to start that when we break this meeting up, then.”

“Excellent.” Dumbledore looked through some notes, his tone immediately lightening. “Well, then, there remain several items to discuss. Let us start with where and with whom Harry shall live now.”

Sirius was half standing before Remus pulled him back into his seat, covering his eyes with his free hand in a sort of practiced vicarious embarrassment. “Sir, that duty is mine, not yours, to dispense with. He is  _ my _ godson.”

Dumbledore looked piercingly at Sirius for a moment before he spoke. “Yes, and as we now know that you were not, in fact, the secret keeper for Lily and James at the time of their betrayal, I cede that point, but must insist that discussion remains vital, for there is no ideal solution here.” Sirius twitched and narrowed his eyes but indicated his willingness to listen through silent attention when Dumbledore paused. After a beat, the headmaster continued. “Did you know, Sirius, that the protection that Lily died to give her son will endure  _ only if _ a member of their blood family resides with him? And that, in fact, Lily’s only other living family are her Muggle sister and his family?”

To Hermione’s momentary surprise, it was Severus who jumped to his feet first, Sirius letting himself sit back down in surprise at the sight. “Preposterous, headmaster! To entrust the rearing of a magically talented child to Petunia Evans would be consigning him to a life of petty persecution for having gifts she lacks, during which he might be warped to who knows what bitterness. His m-… his  _ parents  _ would have wanted him to reside where  _ new  _ love might grow, and regardless of how unsuitable he is to care even for himself-” Sirius guffawed, flinging himself against the back of his chair, “- _ regardless _ of any shortcomings, Mr. Black is does clearly care for the child, is of some means, and is a skilled Auror capable of his defense.” Severus sniffed, sparing a haughty glance for the erstwhile Marauders. “Not that I would relish teaching any ward of his in the future.”

Sirius was growling and Remus was glowering and despite trying to calm him down the instant Snape finished. Eventually McGonagall reached out to literally deliver a sharp slap to Sirius’s wrist, snapping him out of it as he shook his hand with an expression of shock and affront. “Oh, do you hush. I was weary of this ridiculous animosity before it was six months old, and I cannot begin to tell you how tiring it makes me today.”

Hermione, seeing her opening in the temporarily chastened Sirius, quickly spoke up. “You’re  _ all  _ right. The Harry I knew grew up being abused by the Dursleys. He slept in a tiny cupboard under the stairs of their house, was emotionally battered constantly, treated like an…” she bit out the words “enslaved House Elf, and often even starved unto the point of malnutrition. But he wouldn’t have survived - Sirius, I’m sorry, I’ve seen you fight and, yes, you too, Remus, you  _ all  _ save maybe Dumbledore _ \-  _ but he  _ will not survive _ without the spell his mother cast through her sacrifice.”

Everyone blinked at her, even Diggle now looking sobered. She took a deep breath, drawing courage from the uncertain furrow of Dumbledore’s brow. “I... have an idea for this - one that I think may ultimately work out for the best of all concerned, but it’s… it’s a little…” She paled, feeling queasy about her own machinations. “Well, it’s definitely a further step down an incautious path, and I would need you all to trust me.”

Everyone was quiet, looking at her in various shades of worry and skepticism. “And… you propose that no one else would know the particulars of this plan?” Dumbledore asked.

She bit her lip. “I would probably need help, but the … well. The most accomplished Legilimens and Occlumens in the room would likely be the best suited, and that’s in part because he could keep things quiet. Yes, even from the rest of you.”

Severus regarded her thoughtfully. “Ms. Granger… if in fact you plan to put the child in the care of another, how do you know that he will… become a similar person?”

She shook her head. “I … don’t categorically and definitively know it, but I  _ do  _ know that character can come out of kindness as well as hardship, and that good parents who raise good people do exist. I’d … I’d really like him to have those, and not just for his first year - and,  _ yes _ , Sirius, also for him to spend at least some time with his doting godfather and as-good-as second godfather, Remus - and me, and even  _ you _ , Severus, if it interested you.” She was unable to repress a sniffle, dashing her sleeve at her eyes impatiently. “And definitely Neville, and perhaps some other children he’ll eventually know in school.” She shook her head. “I … I know how to do it. I would just need a little help.” She shook her head, her tone gaining conviction as she continued. “Also, I  _ know _ Harry, and Harry is Harry no matter what good or bad gets thrown at him, maybe less some typical moody adolescent bits, and I have faith that enough of who he  _ was  _ came from within that he will be himself again.”

The long-silent Moody spoke next, low and fierce and skeptical. “And would you take the Unbreakable Vow that, to the best of your knowledge and foreknowledge, this plan you’ve concocted is at least as safe for the future and the boy as his original path was?”

Hermione nodded rapidly. “Absolutely. Let’s do it right now. Who am I vowing to, and who’s casting the binding?”

❧ 

Once the oath was made - to Dumbledore, by Moody - and some details were sorted and lunch arrived. They spoke wearily and ate with more doggedness than appetite before they all, grudgingly, agreed they’d have to move on.

“Well then,” said Dumbledore, his quiet authority pulling the group back to order after a short stretch. “What of other events we must prevent Voldemort and his faction from precipitating?”

The Longbottoms nodded vigorously and Moody lent forward in anticipation, his eye whirring madly in its socket. “Indeed. I don’t know that I believe the barmy bastard can be killed at all.”

Hermione swiped her palm down over both her eyes wearily. “Well, he  _ can _ , but he isn’t yet. I’m afraid a well-intentioned idiot once told him how to… ugh.” She looked around. “Look, this should be kept to potential combatants and those with exceptionally good Occlumency only. Suffice it to say he had contingency plans in the event of his near defeat.” She sagged in her seat, the weight of all the horror of life when she was, essentially, not just a child soldier but a child  _ general  _ sank onto her with the heavy recollections. “It was largely a battle fought by children the first time around, dismantling his protections, and I would very much like  _ not  _ to have it go that way again. I think, with some quick action, that we can set a course for that. But it would help to compromise remaining Death Eater leadership quickly,  _ and  _ to strengthen the depleted numbers of the Order immediately rather than letting it go dormant.”

Moody’s mouth quirked as if he couldn’t decide whether to approve or disapprove of her reticence to tell all before he spoke. “Well then, Missy Mystery, how ought we to manage that? Other than by watching the DMLE bring the foul conspirators to trial and letting me go off to do my job, short a few green colleagues if necessary?”

Hermione sighed. “We’ve got a few fronts we need to manage. Em,” she pulled a notebook and quill from her bag and started making a list. “Before it all, I need some potion ingredients, and then some time with you both, Severus and Remus - oh do  _ stop  _ making those faces about it, you nitwits - I  _ will _ hex you with something not invented yet if you provoke me.” She shook her head and sighed. “As to the bigger picture, let’s talk about Peter Pettigrew and the four Death Eaters who attacked… em, or  _ will  _ attack?... you, Frank and Alice. And all of that  _ must  _ be dealt with quickly.”


	18. Hurt/Comfort

It had been an exceptionally long meeting, and when Hermione finally emerged with the rest, trudging toward the Great Hall for a late dinner because none of them could stand to take it in the much smaller room. At least the beginnings of the several necessary next steps had been resolved more or less to her satisfaction. 

She desperately hoped, picking up a Harry who recognized her and greeted her with glee and bright eyes, that she could just not fuck it all up.

Sirius was beside her, appropriating Harry from her arms almost immediately. “Hermione, you can’t just take him from me.” It was less stern and more pleading. “If anything happened to him…”

Hermione looked up at Sirius, real sympathy warring with impatience after  _ several _ rehashings of this over the last several hours. Neither she nor Sirius had any sort of home fit to raise a child in at present. Both of them were involved in high risk machinations that put unpredictable demands on their time. And though this wasn’t the point she’d put front and center, both of them were, frankly, psychological disaster areas, and even  _ Remus _ had some leveling to do around the head. “Sirius, I believe you could rise to the occasion, but right now,  _ and _ the factor of blood…” She shook her head. “Please believe me that, if I can work this out, you will see a lot of Harry and I will do anything and everything in my power to support you in being a good parental figure to him. But he needs stability no one in the order is going to have in the next several months, and what Lily did is  _ important _ .” She shivered, remembering the sight of white feathers, falling. “When Harry came of age, there were pairs of us all with one flyer and one passenger Polyjuiced to look like Harry and put on brooms, and when that spell ceased to work we had to  _ run _ . Sirius,” she lowered her voice, looking around for others listening, “We suffered heavy casualties. Moody  _ died _ in that attack. It’s incredibly important -  _ incredibly _ .”

Sirius gnawed at his lip, his Godson looking up at him with concern and reaching up to pat his shoulder with his tiny, feather-light hand. Sirius looked like he might break, choking over a sob as he looked down to see this. 

“So help me, Hermione… I don’t know if I’ll love you or hate you in the end, but I don’t know that anyone has ever given me such godawful whiplash in my life, and this had  _ better  _ actually be for the best.”

Hermione felt her eyes leaking again, too, and forced herself to take a breath and squash her tone into evenness before she spoke again. “Sirius, it’s hurting me, too. So much.  _ Please  _ know that I would never, ever, ever hurt Harry. And… I would only hurt you if it were damned important. I know you’ve suffered enough. He and I, though… we’ve saved each other’s lives probably once a year since we met, and I recognize my turn.  _ Please _ trust me.”

He looked at her searchingly. “What about when that awful word was cut into your arm?” 

_ Ah _ , she thought dismally.  _ So he’d noticed that.  _

“If you watched out for each other so well,” Sirius continued, “ _ how _ could that have happened?” He sniffled, producing a handkerchief from his sleeve and handing it to her before using the sleeve itself to mop at his own woebegone visage. “I know I was... broken... but I know  _ you knew me _ . How could  _ I _ have? How can I be certain that you don’t have some gripe with any one of us for landing you in the thick of all this, or for letting terrible things happen to you, when honestly? I know a lot of this happened to you ages ago but you’re  _ still  _ too bloody young to be reasonably expected to have to deal with any of this, especially not the care of a child when you didn’t  _ choose _ it, right now _.” _

She sighed. “I’m your age.”

He snarled, “I bloody well  _ know _ that, Hermione.”

Hermione frowned at him as Harry started to cry, upset by the tension. Sirius, immediately chastened, started cooing conciliatory nonsense at his godson while Hermione gathered her wherewithal to reply. “I’ve learned that a crucial part of surviving this all, Sirius, is understanding that most of the time, when you’re casting about for someone to blame, it begins and ends with Voldemort. I have bones to pick with some people - but for the most part those are the minds I have to change, or save from their own folly.” She scratched her head and produced a clean hanky of her own to thrust back at him. “And  _ stop  _ doing that to your sleeve, you’re spoiling my attraction to you.”

He snorted, accepting it and shaking his head as he spelled off the stains. “Can’t have that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, you carry him down.”

He nodded dolefully, suddenly resembling the big black dog she knew he could turn into.

She shook herself, “Ack, get those puppy eyes away, just go. And.. Sirius?”

He looked at her over his shoulder, having just turned to leave the office. “Hermione?”

“I really  _ am _ sorry,” she said, her voice cracking a bit. 

He looked at her a moment, then at Harry, and slowly nodded as he walked out the door. 

❧ 

Hermione stood there by herself for a couple minutes, contemplating screaming or turning over Dumbledore’s desk, or perhaps even seeing if it was possible to drown oneself in a Pensieve. 

Eventually, though, a warm hand tentatively touched her shoulder. “Hermione, you’re still here?” The startlement went out of her the instant she recognized the voice, and to her chagrin, she sagged back against the hand, which easily compensated for the weight. “You mustn’t fail to eat after all that, especially given all that’s to come. May I walk with you down to dinner? Is there anything else I can do to help you?” She turned then, still unready to meet the concerned green eyes that looked down at her as he pushed the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I find chocolate often improves my spirits, and I’m sure the Elves will have something containing it on the menu, or could make you a mug of cocoa at least.”

That was the last straw. She just about collapsed on him, and his arms slowly came up around her as he got over his shock at this development.

And so, for five minutes that stretched into eons, for all she felt them, she wailed and cried and befouled the front of Remus’s shirt before she grudgingly let him lead her down to eat.


	19. Burners, Bridges, and Unexpected Reactions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Anxiety, obliquely pertinent content to the struggles associated with present day pandemic conditions.

###  NOVEMBER 2, 1981

Late the next morning, Hermione had a meeting scheduled with Remus and Severus in the Potions Classroom. She held Harry on her lap while both ate breakfast off one plate, pointing to the banners for each house to and singing their Sorting Hat verses as well as she could remember in silly voices (and probably off key). When she couldn’t delay it any longer, she handed him over to Sirius (who also took Harry’s little broom and was trying to teach him how to say ‘Hawkshead Formation’ as she walked away). She was so prematurely annoyed at Sirius for causing Harry flying injuries that she could  _ almost _ head down to the Dungeon without feeling dreadful at the prospect of being cooped up with two people who had so much bloody-minded animosity between them.

At least she knew they were capable of professional courtesy toward each other. 

Sort of. Later in life. 

With plenty of passive aggressive digs on Severus’s part. 

Regardless, over the threshold she went.

It was strange, being there; the room was ordered in a way that had elements of both Snape’s preferred exactitude and Slughorn’s gregariousness. A large swath of the stone floor was discolored in a way that suggested that, until recently, there had been a carpet on it. Lavish impressionist wizarding paintings adorned the walls, lending some cheer to the subterranean room - but some showed signs of smoke and burn damage. There were also snug, upholstered chairs instead of bare stools around the tables, though they looked a bit careworn and were doubtless in a more faded and frayed condition than Snape’s predecessor would have allowed. But Snape, now, hadn’t yet been teaching long.

Long enough, at least, to have the potion components ordered according to the Sapriscine Schema rather than Slughorn’s preferred Mandelbrew Scale (,  _ Thank Merlin! _ ). And for him to have gotten rid of Slughorn's grandiose lectern and instead placed his own lab equipment at the front of the room for demonstrations, which, however unfriendly, had much to recommend them over lengthy episodes of holding forth, names dropping like confetti along the way.

The new Potions Master was not without showmanship, however. Severus was playing his virtuosity as a Potioneer less close to the vest in this time, with his arms moving in a continuously fluid dance between the summoning of ingredients, pouring, measuring, chopping, weighing, grinding, and intermittently stirring three cauldrons at once. 

Lupin was already there, too, sitting near the back of the room, reading quietly in one of the student chairs. He was not facing Snape, but not putting his back to him, either. He was sufficiently distracted by his book that his emotions were moving plainly over his face - surprise, disbelief, curiosity. 

She stalled in the doorway; she’d rather just watch either of them than try to work jointly on something with both.

It was not to be. Snape saw Hermione standing there and nodded to her curtly as another cauldron soared over to a fourth tripod, which was already set out over an unlit flame. “Ms. Granger.”

Lupin looked up then, marking his place in his book before gathering his satchel and pushing his chair in neatly. As he walked up, Hermione couldn’t help but think about how long it had taken him to do that - it was, in some ways, a lie. He’d likely heard her coming since she started down the stairs on the other end of the hall from here, and had certainly both heard and scented her before she stood in the open doorway. But he had, at some point, practiced not reacting until someone with typically human senses would.

It made her a little bit sad.

Although… maybe it was just a good book.

When he arrived to stand beside her, on the far side from Snape along the slate work counter, she held out a small, folded bit of cloth.

Lupin took the offered item slowly, looking up at her with a question in his eyes. Snape, meanwhile, continued to mix his potions, his eyes occasionally coolly cycling to take their interaction in. 

Hermione answered the question aloud. “I know you’ve said Potions was never your strong suit.”

She didn’t miss Snape’s shoulders relaxing slightly into languid arrogance, but he didn’t say anything. Still, if she’d noticed, Lupin certainly had. He continued to look between her and the item as he unfolded it, though - it was a small scrap of white cloth that was contoured and sized embarrassingly like a single cup from a bra, but more rectangular, and it had four long, white linen ribbons hanging from its corners. 

She shrugged when he finished taking it in. “I borrowed materials from Madame Pomfrey - I’m better at knitting, but, well… I worked for in the Department of Mysteries, after a brief stint with the DMLE, after the war, and my partner, Malfoy, and I - 

_ “Malfoy?” _ Severus interjected incredulously, his arms still moving but his eyes fixed on her.

She smiled a bit “Didn’t get those memories, I take it. Yes, Severus, Draco turns out to be redeemable, despite having a grouch for a godfather and Lucius for a father. And that’s hardly the half of it, really. But let’s revisit that topic at a later time,” she said, turning back to Remus. 

“This… looks like a surgeon’s mask,” he said slowly, lifting it up to fit over his nose and mouth experimentally. When it was more or less in place, his eyes widened and flew to hers as he took an experimental breath. 

She shrugged, smiling sheepishly. "At the Department of Mysteries, I was engaged in this project to reexamine the premises underlying the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and reconstitute its resources in such a way as to promote the conservation and study of non-sentient magical animals and steward the greater enfranchisement of sentient magical beings. Including a re-examination of who was classified as which, of course - the centaur thing is truly appalling, for example.” 

Remus nodded, one of his eyebrows quirked. “A lot must have changed.”

Hermione sighed. “Yes, but not enough. Still, Voldemort replaced the Fountain of Magical Brethren with a statue of a witch and wizard sitting on a throne of contorted nonwizard bodies,  _ then  _ the outcome of the war's decisive battle hinged on which sides were chosen by nonhuman combatants. After that, even the most cantankerous scions of the Sacred 28 agreed it might be a good idea to be better to our neighbors - if only for purely selfish reasons.” She scrunched her nose. “Although, I think it’s gone from 28 to somewhere in the high teens, where I came from.”

Both men were blinking at her, aghast.

She shook her head. “I talk a lot about facts, alright? Learn to deal with it.” She sighed testily, then continued. “ _ Anyway _ . Our first phase was fact-finding. We wanted to survey a diverse, statistically-significant cross section of the non-mage magical community regularly over time to amass evidence. Though we had a good idea of what needed doing, because we anticipated resistance - there was no point in trying without new data with which to fight conservative tendencies. Draco and I mostly spent our time organizing this effort and compiling results into a meaningful format to base recommendations on, but we also each made a point of taking on some of the interviewees ourselves, and to figure out incentive projects to convince reluctant populations that it was worth participating. One of my incentive projects, for instance, involved distributing the potion I’m about to teach you how to make.”

Snape cocked his head thoughtfully, his hands still working but moving more slowly as he turned off the heat under one of the potions. “So Belby does finish it, does he?”

Lupin looked over at him. “ _ Damocles _ Belby?”

Hermione looked between them, then nodded. “Yes. Soon. You both know him?”

Lupin shrugged, letting Snape concentrate on his remaining two brews as he explained. “Belby was a Ravenclaw Prefect, two years ahead of us. I knew he’d gone on to study potions, but didn’t know about this.”

Snape half-sneered, too busy to fully commit to the expression. “He’d hardly have volunteered the information to you, Lupin. Your condition was, after all, such a well-kept secret.”

Remus sighed, sounding a bit exasperated, but Hermione was talking before he could open his mouth. “No.”

Puzzlement from both. She shook her head. “Just, no. No passive aggression, no sly barbs, no disdain, no jokes at each other’s expense, no plausibly-accidentally sharing each other’s dangerous secrets, no bullshit,  _ no _ .”

Remus and Severus now appeared united in their resentment of Hermione.  _ Well, fine, let them _ , she thought.

What she said, though, was, “Look. Remus was scared of defying his more popular friends despite it causing him to fail in his responsibility as a prefect and a generally decent person to protect you, Severus, from his their bullying. And you, Severus, were a prejudiced  _ stalker  _ of one of their housemates who invented  _ Sectumsempra  _ while bored in Potions because you were soooo much too smart for it all.” She ground her teeth before soldiering on. “One of you managed to alienate his best friends so thoroughly that they thought he was selling them out to Voldemort, and the other actually DID sell his best friend out before he  _ finally  _ woke up to the horror of the cause he’d pledged himself to. So you’re neither of you as good as you may sometimes look, alright?”

_ Oh, good, they look like they want me dead, that’s nice, _ she thought, taking a breath to check in with their expressions.  _ Maybe they’ll collaborate on the murdering.  _

Severus actually slammed down a jar of ground scarab beetles so hard it cracked, and Hermione flicked a  _ Reparo  _ at it while watching the fingers of Lupin’s clenched fists go white.

“You were also  _ both,” _ she continued, “desperately lonely children living with a legacy of childhood abuse neither of you should have had to suffer as well as the literal and figurative scars of parental mistakes  _ neither  _ of you should have had to bear. Hell,” she snorted, “Sirius fits that, too, for all he nearly destroyed you both his little prank. The two of you, though, were  _ both  _ brilliant and bookish and lonely and  _ too grateful  _ to think all that critically about the crowds that were glad to have you fall in with them. And  _ I _ think, if the wind had blown differently on platform nine and three quarters on a single day, it’s altogether possible you might have been very good  _ friends  _ to each other -  _ maybe  _ even smoothed out some of each other’s shortcomings.”

Remus was pale and stiff, and Severus extra-aloof and seething. She sighed. “Yes, well, work toward my demise for saying it all as long as you do it together as a trust-building exercise. But also let it sit in your outsize brains and  _ peck  _ at you because, on some level? You  _ both  _ know that every iota of what I’ve just said is true.” She tied her hair back irritably as she looked between them. “Idiots! What did you do, stake out the  _ farthest possible  _ study tables from each other in the library? How often did one of you have out the book the other wanted and fume about it in silence for ages?”

That caused some restiveness in both - shuffled feet, flickering eyes.  _ Got you _ , she thought.

She stalked around the table to stand beside Snape at the cauldron, charming a bit of chalk to wait to take dictation at the board behind her as she went. 

_ “Both  _ of you took heroic action, redeeming any shortcomings you may have had, again and again, in my time. I can think of no one I respect more than either of you. And  _ no one  _ I more greatly miss.” 

She dashed the sleeve of her free arm along her eyes as she summoned some ingredients of her own.  _ Damn you both _ , she thought.

“If you can see your way toward, I don’t know, seeing someone who has mourned and idolized you as a common enemy in order to start to become friends, or at least trusted colleagues, I think there’s a considerably better chance for each of you to make it out of this omnishambles  _ alive _ . So keep looking daggers at me, and  _ curse you both _ for being quiet, thoughtful types and hanging me out to ramble in a meeting I’ve been anxious about since before we scheduled it.” 

She started to try to measure, but her hands were shaking, so she put her silver measuring spoons down and looked up to Remus instead. All that, and she had yet to tell him what the mask was for.  _ Oh, well done, me _ , she thought. 

“You,” she sniffled at Remus. “You need to put that mask on, because if the data I’ve collated so far is correct, you suck at this Potions business because your sense of smell around the components is driving you to distraction. That thing’s spelled ten ways from Tuesday to counteract that - you’re welcome.”

Then, she looked over at Severus. “You. You need to  _ stop offering me your damned hanky when I’m furious with you _ , that is  _ not _ okay, and then you need to make sure you can make this potion after I show it to you once. I believe you can get there, Lupin, but I suspect you may need to remediate years of less-than-ideal learning conditions first.” She shuddered, working to collect herself. “Remus, you need to start taking this thing  _ daily  _ starting Wednesday, then each month starting this one for the entire week leading up to the full moon. You can’t sweeten it even though it’ll taste wretched and maybe make you feel off - you never wanted to talk much about side effects but I think there were headaches. You’ll stop getting all the self-harm scars and it’ll put a stop to the strain-accelerated aging you’re otherwise likely to start experiencing now you’re done growing. You can, I believe, take Muggle remedies like paracetamol or ibuprofen for any discomfort. If you take Wolfsbane Potion properly, you can just curl up in your quarters after you transform instead of heading to the shack - and yes, I’ll help you make the space safe in case of anything going wrong. But now, we brew. Is that all clear?”

Remus blinked and murmured, “Perfectly,” while Snape drew himself up and said, “As crystal.”

Hermione spent a fraught three hours demonstrating and answering questions, her hair escaping into more and more frizzed tendrils the longer she stood over the steaming pot.

It was a tense but productive afternoon, with no interjections of small-talk - though the air did feel somewhat less ominously charged over time.

But since she’d pissed everyone off anyhow, as she was halfway out the door…

“Also,” she stared at Remus. “Your biological children, should you ever be so blessed,  _ cannot  _ inherit lycanthropy from you as a male parent. Full stop. I do not  _ ever  _ want to hear your melodramatic whinging on that subject, not  _ ever _ again.”

Then, she turned to the blinking Severus as Remus sat down heavily and perhaps not entirely voluntarily. “And  _ you _ never were and will never  _ be  _ entitled to any woman, no matter how friendly she may ever have been to you, and it’s that kind of attitude that makes men like your father. Men who think such things are abusive even when they  _ don’t _ hit - so read some bloody Simone de Beauvoir or something because you  _ are _ a better man. A  _ good _ man. And it would have been nice to have seen you find  _ real _ romantic love instead of confusing it for a combination of friendship and infatuation.”

❧

###  NOVEMBER 3, 1981

Before she and Snape were scheduled to meet in her study the next afternoon in order to commence planning for Harry’s living situation, Hermione had spent the entire morning playing with little Harry and Neville, letting Alice and Frank have a lie in and sublimating all her nervous energy into letting the little ones climb all over her, pretending to chase them all around the hall, and generally winding them up spectacularly, certain they’d nap well after lunch.

When Snape finally arrived, they got to work without preamble. Though she felt her anxiety returning, he was quiet but helpful, and mercifully didn’t scruple at the more morally tenuous bits of her plan. She thought she could get through them if he didn’t look at her as if she were evil incarnate as she explained, and when instead he offered a soft, “Well-reasoned,” she could have almost cried with relief as the tension inside her cracked.

He hesitated for a moment, then just put his plain white handkerchief over her hand, which had a death grip on her armrest. He let his long fingers loiter just long enough that she noticed the stillness before he withdrew. 

“Ms. Granger... I am not typically qualified to offer advice on personal matters. But… this is a perilous time, and you have inextricably tied yourself into it in a way that requires you to share fraught memories and, in many respects, author the destruction of the world as you knew it. Under such trying circumstances, it is only natural that  _ any  _ predisposition to anxiety you might possess might push you toward states of panic - panic of the sort you appeared to experience yesterday.”

He sighed, his brow furrowing in  _ concern _ , to her amazement. “You are indispensable to us here, now - you represent the opportunity for a future that none of us could otherwise imagine. I know something of what it is to live under the shadow of fear - and I will gladly help you to procure whatever you might need in order to spare you any ounce of apprehension your rather remarkable mind might otherwise accidentally inflict on you.”

He sighed as she blinked at her lap, shocked into silence. “Meanwhile…” he paused, positioning himself so that his face was visible to her downcast and averted eyes, “Please know that Lupin and I withstood sharing a bottle of mead at the same bar last night, and that we concur that we probably should not… what was it? Ah - ‘collaborate in your demise.’”

He was out the door before she cracked and started laughing, and down the stairs before she started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was difficult to fine tune. I hope I've done it alright.


	20. Unforgivable Necessities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy, here we go...!

### NOVEMBER 7, 1981 - SPINNER’S END, COKEWORTH

Hermione paced in front of Snape as he sat in his own sitting room, away from the school, referring frequently to an enormous corkboard festooned with notes, pushpins, and connecting strings. They’d been meeting here to discuss plan updates and practice Occlumency, both a bit relieved to have some distance from the school and its many ears. 

On their initial foray here, Hermione had expressed surprise that Snape’s parents were no longer in residence - indeed, she’d been somewhat curious about them and hoped their paths might cross. 

_[A list as long as my arm of Order members’ parents to hex, and could I manage to come across one if I tried? No, apparently I could not_ , she may have thought.]

Evidently, though, his ascension as a Death Eater had come with perks - including the gift of a “more appropriate” residence. Eileen and Tobias Snape now resided on the small country house he’d been given. He claimed he had little use for a residence outside Hogwarts most of the time - but also mentioned, once, that he thought his mother might find more space agreeable. 

This evening, though, all talk was of the future - specifically, what they would do this very night in order to secure the best possible chance at a happy and well-adjusted life for one Harry James Potter. 

Snape listened quietly as she related the evening’s fully-developed and revised itinerary to him, occasionally closing his eyes or rubbing at his temples as she spoke. Rarely, he interrupted with questions. The windows and curtains were closed against the dark of the evening and any possibility of prying ears or eyes, and the air grew close in the cluttered, dusty house. 

Finally she finished, and he sat, eyes closed, apparently lost in thought for a moment.

“What this war did to you, Miss-” he started.

“ _-Hermione_ ,” she interjected. “ _Please_ , just Hermione. I may yet need to change my surname anyhow, and you’re going to be assaulting my mind nightly for who knows how long besides. I suspect the connection is personal enough.”

He patiently waited for her to finish and then opened his eyes, regarding her frankly. “I was uncertain, given the nature of your previous associations with me, that I should attempt any such… intimacy.”

She shrugged, a bit of a shiver traversing her shoulders at his diction intersecting with that word. “We’re more or less of an age now and I’ve gotten over your rather pants teaching philosophy. I’ve comprehensively ranted at you about everything else. And I _have_ , at least, learned a great deal from you.”

He snorted in a half laugh. “So it would seem, though I withheld certain intuitive factors I believe you might have benefited from, particularly in light of the... harrowing... path you’ve had to walk.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, if you grant me a small, tiny, ridiculous favor that’s going to piss you off later, we’ll call it even.”

He quirked a heavy brow. “Very well. But I was saying…” He shook his head. “Your war sharpened your mind to the point of cutting yourself. There are tenable alternatives that might be less personally demanding of you. Do you remain certain that this is the course you wish to take? I … have a store of calming draughts to give you and am researching better options, but I wish first and foremost for you to consider the strategic value, if nothing else, of your own peace of mind.”

She stared at him a moment. “Severus, you know how you’re trying to help me not panic? Do you speak French?”

He merely looked back at her. 

She sighed and then started to recite. “‘How does it happen that this man, so distressed at the death of his wife and his only son, or who has some great lawsuit which annoys him, is not at this moment sad, and that he seems so free from all painful and disquieting thoughts? We need not wonder; for a ball has been served him, and he must return it to his companion. He is occupied in catching it in its fall from the roof, to win a game. How can he think of his own affairs, pray, when he has this other matter in hand?’” She shook her head and then started vanishing the various notes and pushpins on the cork board into her bottomless bag. “‘And if he does not lower himself to this, and wants always to be on the strain, he will be more foolish still, because he would raise himself above humanity; and after all he is only a man, that is to say capable of little and of much, of all and of nothing; he is neither angel nor brute, but man.’* I would think _you_ ,” she sniffed, “of all people, would find that easy to relate to.”

He blinked, his eyes scanning rapidly from left to right as he recalled and considered. 

Impatient, she turned around after finally sending off the corkboard itself and put her hands on her hips. “I am on the _panic deferment plan._ If you sign up fast, they’ll throw in grief for an entire childhood irreparably torn from reality out the window too, free of charge. Then it can all come crashing down later - once you’ve already done what’s right for the _here_ and _now_ you’ve been dealt. 

He knit his brow skeptically. “Does the ultimate price not include a hefty amount of interest for you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, biting the words off as she checked that her bag was secure, her wand in good order, her hair tied securely back, then started to slip on her cloak. “Look at _yourself_. It would anyway, and this way, I function.”

“I... alright,” he relented.

She shrugged. “Good. I’ll need the help of your fluency of the current Muggle and Magical worlds in order to pull it off. Whatever pain I may suffer, that damage is already mostly done and beyond my control - and I think this is the best of the options. _Please_ know that I’m _done_ for the present with thinking in turns that this all is either self-indulgent or martyred of me. Dwelling on it now will only sabotage our operation, and it isn’t as if I haven’t given it thought. Whenever I haven’t been working on all this, I’ve been playing with Harry, or watching how he is with Alice and Frank, the bonafide parents, versus with Sirius or Remus or myself. Your nemeses and I do admirably as doting aunt and uncles, but are rife with potential for regret and missteps as adoptive parents when so much else is transpiring, not least because of our already considerable grief loads. When I second guess myself, perhaps you can let me use your lab to make some dreamless sleep, alright?”

He took a deep breath, looking at her searchingly. “Alright.” He shook his head a little, then shrugged. “Alright, _Hermione_.” 

It sounded like he was mocking her every time he made himself use her given name - but she’d fine tune it later.

After a brief pause, as an afterthought, he continued: “However, do stay out of my lab - I understand your professor had serious shortcomings, so rather than risk the sanctity of my workspace, _I_ shall make you whatever potions you require.”

❧

### HAMPSTEAD, LONDON

After Apparating around Scotland pilfering Muggle newspapers for about an hour, just to ensure the most recent batch really did provide the most advantageous options, they arrived at their first destination - and Hermione very nearly made Severus go in without her. 

But she knew she could do this better, at least in this one case. She knew, because she’d done it before - and then promised she never, ever would again.

And so it was that she sat there, wand raised, murmuring softly to her parents in their own living room, her toddler self down the hall, fast asleep. 

“William, your surname has always been Garnier, and your father immigrated here from France. Margaret, you took William’s name when you married, despite your feminist leanings, because you always hated your own maiden name of Legg.” 

Hermione looked down a moment, stilling the impulse to fidget with the kaleidoscope that had always lived on the Granger coffee table, before she continued. “You’re excited to be moving on from London soon and starting a new practice, not to mention moving to a home that better accommodates your family and gives you better access to camping and hiking. You’ve engaged a receptionist, already - her name is Arabella Figg, and she’ll be receiving boxes of the equipment you ship from your current premises all this week. While you will miss it, you plan to visit the city for a weekend each month. A recent and unexpected bequest from your great uncle James, Margaret, will make expenses manageable through the move and make you comfortably able to afford these visits. With most of the proceeds, you have also established a nice trust for your children’s education. You’ve already sent some furniture ahead of you to your new home and will depart the city in one week. Good friends and family will meet you to help unpack when you arrive, on Saturday afternoon.”

She inhaled, reminding herself to stay calm, remembering the way her parents told stories and trying to replicate it. “Sadly, all four of your parents are deceased at this point, but William, around the time you married Margaret, your mother told you that _her_ parents had been magical, and had attended a special school for the magically gifted - and that while she did not inherit their gift, it was very real and could sometimes skip generations. Because of this, she told you that you should be kind and careful should anything … unusual … ever happen around your children. I.. don’t expect you need to be told this, but if any evidence of magical power does arise, it is important not to panic and also not to praise or pay attention to your children unequally, because any who might lack the knack of it might be hurt and it could sow division among them. Also, you know and can reassure any young witches or wizards in your household that they’ll hear from a school of magic around the age of 11 or 12 - but also that, for the good of all, magic is a secret to most, and so you should impress upon them that this is _not_ something to be discussed outside the family.

“And,” she clenched her teeth a moment before plowing on, “you _are_ blessed with wonderful children - the eldest, Hermione, born September 19, 1979, and, to your great surprise,…”

❧

After she finished, she stared into her parents’ kind, vacant eyes - ten years older than her own yet and beginning to show slight signs of age at the corners - for a long time before closing the incantation and sending them to bed. 

She left the details of the new premises for their dentistry practice in Grantown-on-Spey on the kitchen counter, where her mother’s paperwork always seemed to accumulate. They were stacked along with a receipt for a moving service and the deed for their new house in the woods near town and the brochure for a reputable-looking Montessori crèche. 

They _had_ moved house, in her timeline - about a year hence, and not to Scotland, but they’d wanted more space. She thought her mother could enjoy having so much garden to muck about in, and that it looked like a beautiful place to grow up. She hoped she was right, and that Severus could indeed alter all the necessary records as efficiently and equitably as possible.

❧

### NOVEMBER 8, 1981 - LITTLE WHINGING, SURREY

The next stop, after a quick run by a certain London drill company, was to a small, suburban neighborhood in Surrey.

Hermione and Severus stood outside together in a sort of charged silence for a long while before Hermione stepped to the side, bowing and indicating that Severus should proceed first. After a moment, he accepted the invitation.

The door blasted open - though to be fair, it fell forward off its hinges as quietly as possible. 

Moments later, after Snape peeked into the cupboard under the stairs with a sneer before storming up them, they stood together over the bed of the snoring forms of Petunia and Vernon Dursley. Hermione had cast a muffling charm on the nursery, whence came a gentler snore, along the way. 

Hermione and Severus looked at each other grimly across the bed. And then, without waking them, Snape cast the charm. 

“Your names are … Vincent and Rue Dudley. This very evening, after a break-in disrupted the peace of your lives here in the London Suburbs, you had a conversation about what you wanted from the future.”

Hermione leaned back against the wall and folded her arms, intrigued. They’d discussed this in general but she’d left him to work out the details. 

“You were both only children, and particularly in light of the … dangers faced by children in this modern world, you have decided that, tomorrow, Vincent will schedule an elective vasectomy, to occur as soon as possible. You were considering having a child, but on the whole, you think this is best for your future happiness, especially in light of your close relationship with your godson, whose parents, your good friends William and Margaret Garnier, promise you may spend future holidays together your heart’s content. You will ask for and adhere to any advice they give you regarding his treatment-”

“-including what sorts of presents it is appropriate to buy him and what sort of food he ought to eat to be healthy,” Hermione interjected.

“...as well as the treatment of any siblings who may accompany him,” Snape continued, “and think quite lovingly of them all.

“Even to accommodate your intermittent care of said godson and your own anxieties, you have also decided that you both need a… change of scene.” Snape squinted a moment, seeming to search his memory. “Vincent, you will convince your superiors at work that the new posting to expand your drill business in Australia is one to which you are well-suited. They will agree with you, and offer to reimburse you for moving expenses, such that within the week, you will depart for a new home in Alice Springs. Rue, you will spend this week in touch with realtors and movers in order to get everything ready to go. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your visas and the sale of your home come together, and Rue, you believe the dry heat will do wonders for the complexion.” 

He’d added that last bit with an upward twitch of his lips. “Rue, you will fondly remember your childhood friend, whom you always shyly fancied, named Sebastien Snap, and are glad that his and his charming wife’s … tourism business... sometimes take them to the area of your new home. You will look forward to taking them out to the finest restaurants in the city whenever they visit, and tell them quite candidly of anything and everything interesting or unusual that has happened recently in your lives. Ah,” he paused, smirking, “His lovely wife, Mrs. Snap, is named Hermione, by the way.”

Hermione wrinkled her nose, to which Severus shrugged expansively, as if to say this is what she got for dragging him into all this. She had to admit it was a clever pretext. 

Still, it was strange in its… specifics.

“Yes, yes, capital, of course,” Vern… _Vincent_ snored as they left the bedroom, stepping across the hall.   
  
The pink little child in the cot was positively festooned with blue ruffles. Hermione sighed and picked him up, delivering him into Snape’s surprised arms, which only lifted to the burden instinctively as it collided with his stomach. Dudley, mercifully, continued to snore peacefully.

He looked at her, aghast and ungainly with a babe in arms. She shrugged expansively this time - this is what _he_ got for dragging _her_ to Alice Springs as his _wife_ . Meanwhile, quietly, she opened up her bag and, bracing for the deluge, murmured the spell: “ _Accio_ baby things.” 

Fortunately, she’d been braced for the cot, but it was still such a riotous inundation that she was certain she’d need to triage this stuff before delivering the things along with the baby.

Who, as various ruffled blue items and tiny boater hats zipped into her bag, waved his little fists around like a born pugilist. _Oh dear._

She really, really hoped this was truly the right thing. That Dudley’s reign of sibling terror wouldn’t start the moment he was integrated into his new family with his new… fraternal twin brother. 

Thinking of which…

“Hmm.” Hermione said, gazing intently at Dudley, then to Severus, who looked bewildered at the intensity of her regard. 

“Hmm?” he replied, one brow raising. 

_Oh curse you for being so good at that_ , she fumed, wishing she had better voluntary bilateral eyebrow control. “Has anyone ever told you you resemble a younger version of the Muggle actor, Alan Rickman?” she blurted, uncertain of how she had gotten so derailed.

He blinked at her slowly, canting his head. “Who?”

She shook her head. “Oh… keep an eye out for the BBC’s serial of The Barchester Chronicles in November.” 

His head tilted further. “I take it, then, that his star has not yet risen?”

She shook her head. “Not quite,” she whispered, “though he’s had some success on stage by now.” She scrunched her nose in consternation - why hadn’t it ever occurred to her before? _Maybe because Snape never treated me with even the most minimal of_ courtesy _before,_ she thought. But what she said was, “Really, even more than you look like him, you _sound_ like him.”

He looked at her carefully. “Fancied this actor, did you?”

She went scarlet. “What? No! Why would you even ask that?”

She’d said it all too fast.

He looked … cautious, shaking his head. “You were about to say?” He nodded toward Dudley. “About… him?”

She shook her hand as a high chair rapped her soundly on the knuckles, suppressing a curse. “Oh. Well, he’s heading into a hedgerow of Hs, and my parents won’t believe they ever named anyone … _Dudley.”_

Severus nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, they did seem to have a modicum of taste.”

“Still, I don’t want to upend _everything_ on him.” She fretted as various bonnets pelted by. “Dewey or Dexter might suit. I know his mother calls him… calls him Diddy and Diddy Dumpling and … and _Diddykins.”_

Snape looked like he might be ill. “And in the hedgerow of Hs, what options attract you?”

She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be a very attractive one he’d recognize, but surely we could go for… neutral, similarish in tone…”

Severus shrugged. “Henry?”

Hermione shook her head. “Too stately and dignified and redolent of chopping heads off wives.”

The potions professor actually guffawed. “Hamish? Harley? Harald? Harris? Hmm. Hades is likely a bridge too far… perhaps Henley?”

She narrowed her eyes. “That was strangely easy for you. Why?”

He shrugged. “I have contemplated having children, and have already taught many with ludicrous names. I have a mental list of the truly banal and distasteful ones.”

She stared at him.

Until he squirmed a bit. “What?” he finally asked, testily.

“Severus... I think my little favor just got bigger if that’s your idea of a diversion. But Henley is fine.” 

A last lacy-yet-gender-coded camouflage bootie zoomed late into the bag, and Hermione snapped it closed and tucked it away. “This place makes my skin crawl. Let’s get the hell out of here before I decide this is too terrible a thing to do to these people - or not terrible enough.”

Nodding with apparent sympathy, Snape followed her toward the foyer, where Apparition would be less likely overheard.

❧

### HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Alice and Frank blinked blankly up at Hermione in shock after, early the next morning, she found them in the common sitting room with Harry and Neville chewing blocks on a blanket and plunked another baby around the same age down with them.

She waited patiently for them to find control of their voices again. 

Finally, Frank spoke. _“Another_ one?”

Hermione shrugged. “I once overheard your mother yelling at Neville that the two of you had wanted ten children, and that doubtless at least one of them all might have been useful.”

The two looked horrified, and she wondered for a moment if she wasn’t getting too blasé in her callousness. “Em, that is-”

Alice cut her off. “We’d like _five_. It’s… it’s Augusta who wants a full ten to … to duel for some champion-of-the-family title. “

Frank scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “Em, that’s right.”

Hermione was just relieved that Alice seemed annoyed with her mother-in-law, and perhaps her husband for not standing up to her better, rather than at Hermione. She personally thought anything past 2 was getting a little extreme, and was in no hurry, despite the norms of wizarding Britain.

Alice shook her head, sighing as she took in the frilly clothes on the new little boy, who’d seized a block from each Harry and Neville and was making them soar triumphantly around his head with a little giggle. The other two had simply picked up new blocks to bite, unbothered. “What’s his name then?”

“Henley,” Hermione stated decisively. 

“And he’s here because…?” Frank asked.

“He’s your distant cousin, descended of French Squib cousins, and Harry’s new fraternal twin.” Hermione recited the fiction, pleased to remember it with clarity, before she remembered they should likely know some of the truth. “Er - and also Harry’s actual blood relative. Don’t worry, this is only for a week.”

Frank and Alice both blinked at Hermione for a moment before Frank shrugged and picked up the newcomer, looking sympathetically at his outfit. “C’mon, tyke,” he said, standing. “We’ll get you something else to wear and a fresh nappy, maybe even a bath! How’s that then?”

As Frank walked away, chatting with Dudley about the names of objects they walked past, Alice beamed up at Hermione with a radiant smile, as if to say: _That’s_ my _Frank, is he not all that is right and true and glorious?_

Hermione smiled shyly back and nodded, feeling a little better (even as she wondered with a twinge if _she_ would ever feel that way about anyone) as she went to find some desperately-needed sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please no author slaying. [hides]
> 
> * https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm - #140
> 
> -  
> May 6, 2020 update - this week is everyone gets COVID-19 symptoms and tests and maybe some emergency cancer surgery week in my/the author's life. Will post as soon as possible but need to get through all this pesky IRL nonsense of doom first.


	21. Headmistress Professor McGonagall Minerva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me the radio silence. I will spare you an enumeration of the ways I hate this pandemic and only say that if you need to get tested, the tests aren't mostly as bad as they've been advertised to be. 
> 
> Attempting, now, to get back on the horse. I owe one of y'all an email and several comment replies, and I'll get on that too.

“Unnngh,” Hermione protested into her pillow when her wand started chiming and bouncing about the room around noon. 

She hadn’t gotten to sleep until 8 AM. 

She flailed at it as it went sailing past, seeming to delight in its pogo stick impression. She missed and toppled out of bed, looking up at the ceiling in a daze as her head started to ring with announcements of the majestic new goose egg it was getting.

She knew she had to have overslept by at least ten minutes before the wand went from vibration to full-on locomotion, but the fact remained that it was  _ far  _ too early.

Nonetheless, she flailed and swore her way out of bed.

❧

A quick scrub and a word to Frank and Alice later (the children were embroiled in a very intense discussion consisting mostly of coos), she wandered down to the Great Hall, once again feeling queasy as she approached the faculty table. 

Dumbledore hadn’t been idle while she’d been plotting and finally executing her scheme with Severus. Sirius was now ensconced as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, having replaced a pathetically grateful rota of Auror substitutes who were fine being a little understaffed back at the DMLE as long as they didn’t need to flail at a task they were mostly exceptionally ill-adapted to. Enough adaptation to reacting quickly and violently to loud noises and to staying out of sight in crowds did  _ not  _ a wonderful teacher make. 

Sirius, however, with his charisma, skill, and way of making sneaky treachery sound brilliant, was exactly the sort of person who  _ could _ make the leap, and become the school’s most popular professor overnight to boot. His direct supervisor at the Ministry, Rufus Scrimgeour, who was on the verge of having to teach a week of classes himself if no other solution presented itself, had agreed readily that this was for the good. 

Hermione, meanwhile, tried not to hear the 6 th and 7 th … and 5 th and 4 th … and sometimes  _ 3 _ _ rd _ … year girls mooning over their dashing new professor in the halls. 

She herself, meanwhile, had been installed as a ‘Visiting Scholar’ under her own name - something that, apparently, did occasionally happen. Because she drew no compensation beyond room and board for her “work,” the Governors didn’t even need to approve the role - she (and Remus) were there for as long as necessary at the headmaster’s discretion. 

Hermione could only assume this policy went wrong or was changed at some point, because otherwise it would have been  _ incredibly _ useful during the second war. 

They did, though, need to occasionally hold workshops or lectures for current students, or substitute teach - which mercifully hadn’t come up yet, unlike the eating-at-the-staff-table thing. 

Eating at the staff table: the thing which, after holing herself up in her study with the cork board for several consecutive days, she now  _ had  _ to do unless she wanted to forage for food off campus. Dumbledore had insisted there were still some areas where he might know something she had no greater mastery of, and that interacting with others might prove good for her.

So she slumped, bleary-eyed, into a seat between Minerva and Severus, waving dismally at other familiar faces as she bumbled past.

She got about halfway through loading up her plate - she was  _ famished,  _ having missed lunch and dinner yesterday - before she turned to glare at the composed and awake-seeming Potions Professor.

“Severus. Why aren’t you as absolutely knackered right now as I am?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “I  _ know  _ you stayed up even later than I did, with Apparating around to change records and such.”

Snape finished chewing his bite of shepherd’s pie with no evident hurry to respond before he finally spoke. “I  _ am  _ the Potions Master.” He sipped from a mug that radiated the aroma of strong coffee. “Also, like most dungeon-dwelling, vitamin-D-deficient scholars, I enjoy caffeine.”

She spotted the carafe next to him and reached rudely across him to seize it, figuring he had some personal space invasion coming. “Learn to share if you want to make friends, you self-important fruitbat.”

He put a little stoppered vial in front of her without looking at her, continuing to eat. “Manifestly I am an omnivore, Granger. Do try and keep up.  _ Phyllostomus hastatus _ , perhaps.”

Hermione inhaled some coffee with a snort as she matched the Latin to the common name, then spent a minute coughing into her linen napkin before she could speak. Snape patted her back as if he found it distasteful - but he  _ did _ pat her back.

Finally, after downing the potion he’d given and immediately starting to feel less wrecked by fatigue, she replied. “That’s rather harsh. I’ve always thought it more aquiline than spear-like.”

Snape, who was now applying himself to a bowl of melon, huffed - but did so with a slight smirk. “The lady is too kind.”

Minerva, who had been fairly distant for these eventful few days and looked rather drawn, nonetheless seemed curious about the conversation beside her. Though over dark circles, her eyes were characteristically bright and incisive as she surveyed the younger pair. “Severus, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you  _ banter _ before.”

He sneered. “This, banter?” With a dismissive sniff, he reapplied himself to his food, which left Minerva warily regarding Hermione, and Hermione smiling back without trying to look desperate to reestablish friendship. 

“Em,” Hermione tried, “Would you like some coffee, Headm- _ em _ -Pro-er-” She paused to take a breath, then smiled anew, offering the carafe. “ _ Minerva _ ?”

Minerva replied by brusquely sipping her tea with a sidelong glance at Hermione. Hermione put the carafe back down. “Ah. Yes, no, I do know that you  _ prefer  _ tea. It’s only you … don’t seem yourself.” Hermione dithered a moment before adding, “If there’s anything I can do to be of help, I’d like to.”

Minerva only looked more suspicious at this. “Mmm. How very kind of you.”

Hermione wondered if there was something on her face. Or stuck in her teeth. Or generally something obviously lacking about her person or character altogether. And so she looked in the opposite direction, feeling hurt. 

... only to be met with a cheeky wink from Sirius, which jolted her into sitting upright and eating with impeccable attention to her table manners, proceeding as efficiently and alertly as a well-caffeinated scholar who was decidedly not distracted by erotic antics ought.

A few minutes later, after Severus excused himself, Minerva looked back at Hermione again, looking … contemplative. “Actually, Hermione, you may be able to assist me with a few matters I’ve been meaning to get to.”

Hermione blinked, smiling hopefully (and, she hoped, not quite pathetically). “Oh, of course! Anything at all! What can I do?”

Minerva looked sour for another moment before she continued. “I understand, from Remus, that you seem to carry your life with you wherever you go. Might you, perchance, have the detailed results of your NEWTs with you?”

Hermione nodded quickly - of course she did! Oh, good, something easy, she thought, summoning them discreetly from the bag in her pocket so as not to show off the legally questionable undetectable extension charm. She handed the sheaf of papers to McGonagall the second they were in hand.

The older woman thumbed through them in silence for several minutes, her eyebrows arching up or furrowing down occasionally in mute response. Hermione tried to limit her surreptitious glances and focus on her lunch, though.

Until finally the papers were handed back to her. Hermione accepted them and looked expectantly at her dear friend, the stranger. 

Who said nothing.

After a few minutes of shuffling the results from hand to hand, Hermione had run out of ways to squirm and broke. “Em, is there anything else, Pr.. Minerva?”

The Transfiguration Professor sniffed and handed the reports back. “Seven O’s from Seven NEWTs, I see.”

Hermione nodded slowly, starting to tuck the papers back into her bag. “Em, I’d wanted to take more, but -”

Minerva cut her off. “Rather over the top, isn’t it? Particularly with the effusive hand-written commentary exceeding what I have  _ ever _ written for any of my students, in my hand, on your Transfiguration results, I noticed.”

Hermione blinked, pulling out the result in question and scanning it quickly before turning her hurt eyes back to her erstwhile mentor. “But, Professor! You… you just wrote ‘Well done’!”

Minerva, steely-eyed, sipped her tea.  _ “Precisely.” _

Hermione’s eyes widened and, after a moment, she dropped the papers back into her bag. “Em… is there… is there anything else?”

Minerva seemed to weigh her response a moment before speaking. “Yes, in fact. Two things.”

Hermione leaned forward, eager to hear. “Yes?”

Minerva gestured to Lupin and Sirius, who were laughing over some conversation, with her cup. “Treat my alumni with care, Ms. Granger. They’re impressionable boys.”

Hermione paled. Shit, had  _ Minerva _ heard about…? Merlin, had she just…  _ heard?  _ But her quarters were on the first floor!

“Oh, em, I would never be anything but... em… but gentle with Sirius and Lupin, Headmistress. They’ve been through so much, and-”

“STOP with the spoilers -  _ you _ may have a brazen contempt for the arc of time, but _ I _ haven’t, and I  _ don’t _ want to know.” Minerva shook her head, seizing a small scone and dunking it in her cup with prejudice. “ _ Or _ to be a headmistress anytime in the next four decades, for that matter.”

Hermione sputtered, trying to apologize, but Minerva continued before she could recall her powers of articulation. “ _ And _ what I meant is  _ don’t _ be gentle with them. Be fair, which more often means speaking hard truths and setting firm boundaries. I may have already coddled at least one of them beyond all redemption and another beyond his sense and ultimately his life.”

Hermione fell against the back of her chair in shock, eventually mustering an “Em… of course. I’ll… I’ll do that. Although, Professor, surely you know it wasn’t your fau-”

“-And,” Minerva interrupted, “please join me in my quarters tomorrow evening for a private dinner. I believe you know the way? Worry not - the Elves understand you are to be fed during such meetings even if they do not occur in the Great Hall. I have a personal matter and an Order matter I need to discuss with you, and latter in particular is pressing.” 

Hermione blinked. “Anything I should prepare for, Professor?”

Minerva shrugged. “Let’s, as they say, wing it. Until then.”

Minerva stood and swept out of the room in a whirl of tartan, leaving Hermione bewildered and on edge. 

Suddenly, napping seemed like both a judicious allocation of resources  _ and _ an absolute impossibility for the afternoon.

Hermione nimbly dodged Sirius’s attempts to catch up with her, likely with some nefarious goal, as she darted through the students and back up to her quarters to regroup. 


	22. A Land Farther Away

###  MUSWELL HILL, LONDON

“This was a lovely idea, Hermione,” said Frank, who was bouncing Du-... who was bouncing  _ Henley  _ on his hip. To Hermione’s great fascination, the two had quickly taken a shine to one another. “You know, the… well… the pictures are quite different, but there’s such a wonderfully huge  _ variety  _ of children’s literature here, and I never would have thought to investigate it. We mostly just have old engravings for Babbity Rabbity and whatnot.”

Hermione smiled up from a copy of  _ The Story of Ferdinand  _ she was reading to a rapt (if slightly grabby) Harry, the afternoon sunlight and joyful chaos of her own childhood bookshop warming her after a trying morning and a trying night. “Well, if you look up The Brothers Grimm, say, you can find some stories not entirely unlike those here - they actually might be fascinating to you. I think they are from before… certain statutes made every line quite so clearly demarcated, if you follow.”

Frank thought a moment and then nodded. “So… these are magical tales, are they?”

Hermione chuckled, carefully pulling Harry’s fingers from a page that was threatening to rip. “Many, maybe even most of the stories here likely are, but those are… old folklore and fairy tales.” She saw the puzzlement on Neville’s father’s young face right away and shook her head, clarifying. “Em - tales like stories. Fairy stories. Or tales. That’s just what the old stories, like those of the… bard… are called.”

At the end of the aisle they were gathered in, Alice, a mad gleam in her eye and a bit of a cackle on her lips, skipped by, Neville toddling after her and a towering load of books in her arms. Hermione burst out laughing, drawing fascinated looks and echoing laughs from first Harry, then Neville, and finally also Frank. 

“I have a feeling Alice and I will be good friends, Frank,” Hermione finally said, catching her breath. “We have similar thoughts where books are concerned, I think. I have some muggle novels she might like for adults, too.”

Frank’s eyes lit up, and he glanced to D..Henley, his enthusiasm immediately catching in a little giggle from the tiny child, too. “She’ll be delighted! Won’t she, Henley?” The kid didn’t look  _ half _ so ridiculous now he was in borrowed clothes from Harry and Neville, and Hermione was generally encouraged at how things were going so far - though he had been a little tearful and reached toward the receding back of Professor Trelawney, who was similar in stature to his mother, earlier. 

Hermione couldn’t let herself dwell on that - not now, not yet, maybe not ever. If she were to be damned for what she had done, well, it was done now anyhow.

By the time she’d stamped out that little thought, though, Frank too looked a bit downcast. “My mother, you know, she… well. Alice has a Muggle grandmother, you know. Not by blood - her grandfather was widowed and remarried. But she’s absolutely besotted with her, and used to ask for Muggle stories all the time. She had quite a few artifacts and books, even, but my mother wouldn’t have them on the estate. It was part of why… well.” He shook his head, bouncing Neville with a weary smile. “Plans don’t always work out, I suppose.”

Hermione was curious, and Harry seemed to be seeing to himself - he’d discovered the joys of board books, and was whacking one against the floor without damaging it, an almost serene look on his cherubic little face. “What had you planned, then? You can’t just bait my curiosity like that, this one would tell you if he were… well… ” she sighed, nodding at Harry, who she started to separate from the book when he tried biting it. 

Frank shrugged, crouching down below where she sat on the floor and letting Henley toddle over to Harry. “See, when Alice and mum started to… well… grate on each other, I started looking through the family deed vault - mages aren’t as plentiful as they once were, and so a lot of old estates seem to have piled up unoccupied into the keeping of several old families thanks to old marriages, lack of other suitable heirs, that kind of thing. And there’s a place - not as big as home, but quite comfortable, with acres of mountain forest and streams and excellent greenhouses, and a lovely library - just outside of Hogsmeade. It even has some cottages on the grounds that could, what with the wards and all, be good, safe peacetime residences for other magical families, or at least neat placed for some curious children to have the run of. It was somehow shunted our way from the Prewetts when someone died maybe 20 years ago.” He shook his head. “I’d been after fixing it up - almost done with it, too - thinking we’d, well,  _ move out.”  _ He shivered and looked around, as if scared the formidable Augusta Longbottom might be within listening distance. 

Hermione blinked, processing this. “Wow, Frank. That sounds absolutely amazing. And… em, sorry, I know her to have raised two ultimately incredible wizards, but maybe also a great environment to raise Neville in. And… never invite Uncle Algie to. Ever. Especially if there are towers.” 

He gave her a curious look and then shook it off. “Yeah, well, I thought so, yeah? Mum can’t stop us. Due to old entanglements and primogeniture, I… er… well,  _ allegedly  _ I’m even the head of the house of Longbottom, so it’s well within my rights to do it and let mum stay at the family seat, too, so. I was going to take Alice there for a surprise on our anniversary, later this month. You know, show her around.” He sagged a little. “I would have, too.”

Hermione had gone very still and was watching him intently even as she clearly put other pieces of information together - and lost track of the fact that Harry had now sandwiched  _ Millions of Cats _ and the Hague  _ East of the Sun, West of the Moon _ , and was biting them both. 

Frank leaned across her to gently tug the books away - leaving Harry to shrug magnanimously and look for more, beckoning Henley to join him. “Hermione,” Frank said, wiping baby saliva from slipcovers. “Are you quite alright?”

Hermione shook herself. “Em, yes. Fine! Everything’s… well. Frank, I … could you write out exactly how you were planning to get there, and when, for me? I think I know how we can catch the Death Eaters who are still at large with a will to continue in their leader’s footsteps. 

Suddenly, Alice appeared at the other end of the aisle, beaming. “I’ve opened a tab! Let me have whatever you like - I’ve got a proper cheques and Hermione, you need to stop plotting whatever it is you’re plotting and show me what to buy with them!” 

Hermione and Frank grinned sheepishly at each other before she pulled herself up, grabbing the various books they’d been looking at and an illustrated copy of  _ The Hobbit  _ besides and leaving Frank with the little ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A real bookstore and real books mentioned within. 
> 
> A lot of what I'm doing, now that I'm back at this, is adding a little more less-dire exposition. I think I was having trouble breaking out of the frantic pace of Hermione's landing in the past when I first drafted all this, so I'm sticking some chapters in between things to set up future action better and spend some quality time with characters and their development. I hope that, even though it's not dripping with sex or adrenaline just now, you enjoy.


	23. Where the Heart Could Be

### NOVEMBER 9, 1981

When Hermione woke up the next morning, significantly better-rested than she had been the day before, it was to the sound of a quiet little huff of breath from a warmth against her side. 

Ah. _Now_ she remembered. 

Yesterday, Alice had _insisted_ on treating Hermione (whose cheque card wouldn’t do her much good here) to her own tall stack of favorite children’s literature. The party of 6 had then enjoyed music and a dinner of delicious fish and chips at a pub Hermione remembered from her childhood in Muggle London. Harry met chips as if destiny had brought them together, first turning one this way and that in his little hands in awe and then laughing in such trilling delight after his first bite that Hermione felt something she hadn’t known was frozen melt inside her. 

It was going to be very hard to give him to her parents at the week’s end. 

Hell, even Dudl…. _Henley_ was growing on her. He had seemed so rapt and amazed whenever Frank talked to him about what something was called or how something worked, always in the same kind voice he used to address other adults. Hermione doubted that was a tone parents who’d called him “ittle Diddykins” unto adolescence had used to address him all that much in his life to date, and wondered if that was the appeal. 

Anyway. After they’d finally gotten home, she’d made off with Harry for some reading time, during which he’d fallen asleep. And here he still was. She snuggled up around Harry, whose eyes had drifted shut in the middle of a (perhaps ambitious) chapter of _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_. He was the very tiniest little spoon - she must be a ladle, she thought, in this equation. 

After some indeterminate amount of time spent musing without answer (and, uncharacteristically, without _panic_ ) about her changing role in the life of this ridiculous, wonderful, finally shorter-than-her-again person, she roused a bit at the sound of a very soft knock at the door. 

She tried to push her hair into something like a presentable shape half-heartedly and weaved sleepily over to answer it, anticipating Alice, who was atrociously sanguine about mornings.

The door opened, however, to reveal someone else. 

She rolled her eyes and left the door ajar, trudging back in and tucking herself back to Harry again with a huff. 

“Good morning to you, too,” he said in a stage whisper, making a show of tiptoeing through the study and into the bedroom behind her with an enormous tray heaped with breakfast things floating behind him. 

Hermione glowered through her chaotic morning curls at Sirius, determined not to encourage him. He was wide awake and irritatingly dashing in what she thought should be called “academic chic,” something Lockhart had never really properly grasped with all his pastels, however he had tried. In a sweep of gray and black tweed, a rather resplendent Sirius Black, however, struck a very, very good chord, and it annoyed her just how much she approved as he carefully sat on the foot of the bed and let the tray hover down to land where Harry’s feet weren’t. 

There were both coffee _and_ tea, pain au chocolat, crispy lean American-style bacon, bowls of berries, scrambled eggs… the git must have been taking actual notes on what things made her happiest about breakfast, and she didn’t know why she was so damned _mad_ about it.

“Frank and Alice were up and about with the other two,” Sirius whispered, less theatrically now he could see the tiny apple of his eye sleeping, “and mentioned you had been reading later than His Nibs’ bedtime in here and likely fallen asleep together, so I thought you might appreciate breakfast in bed.” He hummed softly as he started heaping things on a plate for her. Looking up a moment to take in her grumpy visage, he chose to pour the coffee rather than the tea and stirred in precisely the correct quantities of sugar and cream. “As I’m usually fairly sociable and in the hall for most meals, I’m allowed a bit of takeaway from time to time. Also, well, I’ve been cultivating friendships among the elves here for years, though I can’t say I anticipated needing them quite this long.”

He offered her a plate. It was steaming and it smelled incredible. She felt her lower lip protruding mutinously and attempted to pull her face into a more reasonable arrangement as she levered herself upright, hoping her hair might scare him away. 

An eyebrow quirked, but he only smiled a bit more and conjured a sort of tray with feet that bridged her lap, plunking her food and caffeine down on it and looking rather pleased with himself - _and at peace with the universe to boot_ , Hermione thought, _to add insult to injury_. 

She had gulped up half the coffee and wolfed down half the eggs before she remembered speaking was an expected nicety. “No classes this morning, then?”

He grinned, taking this almost-civil foray into making conversation as an invitation to lay out on his side across the foot of the bed, propping his head up on an elbow. “I’ve the entire day free, actually. Managed to wangle the scheduling that way. 

She chewed with a look of suspicion she didn’t bother veiling on her face. “You teach every single dark arts class, two per level for 7 years’ worth of enrolled students, each class of which meets multiple times a week, and you _wangled_ having Monday off every week?”

He shook his head. “Well, I’ve this morning off - I know my foibles - but I have older students’ classes in the afternoon. I’ve given them all a bit of a practical assignment today instead, though.”

His eyes twinkled with self-satisfied mirth. She ate her pain au chocolat, refusing to give him the satisfaction of asking what potentially disastrous task he’d set the poor kids. She supposed it couldn’t be worse than any number of things she’d survived at their ages, at least.

After about a minute of the soft sounds of her devouring, he looked up at the bed canopy thoughtfully, clearly hoping to beguile her into further inquiry. “It isn’t _too_ dangerous, mind, but you can’t learn much about self-defense without a soupçon of tension and a need for stealth, wouldn’t you agree?”

Her eyes narrowed and she made a point of crunching the bacon noisily, and _not_ letting her eyes roll back at the sheer perfection to which it had been cooked. 

He winced, looking back at her. “Though I aim to please, I cannot begin to comprehend how one could prefer _that_ to proper rashers.”

She swallowed and primly dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her linen napkin. “Really? I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve such a limited imagination.”

Fracturing his veneer of gentility, he let his eyes slowly rake over her, from the bare foot and slender ankle haphazardly protruding from the covers to the flash of thigh between hem of shirt and edge of quilt, then up to the three undone buttons baring the tops of her breasts. His gaze stuck there a long moment before proceeding up the column of her neck and slowly over her face, beginning at the lips and ending at the eyes. “I wouldn’t say that my imagination is _limited_ so much as that it focuses on more pleasant things to contemplate,” he said, finally.

After a moment’s hesitation, he slipped a small but thick book, bound in red leather, out from an interior pocket of his robes. “As you know, I also enjoy research. I find the combination of imagination and education quite inspiring. And I remembered your interest in this, so I thought perhaps you’d like to borrow it.”

Unable to stop herself from taking _any_ book offered, she reached for it. There was no title, just ornate tooling on the cover, but she recognized it. The edges of its onionskin pages were gilt and the small, cramped type was interrupted frequently by informative moving diagrams. It was, of course, the book Sirius had introduced her to when they’d spent the night together on first arriving here, a little more than a week ago. 

She smoothed her thumb over the embossed leather doubtfully, finally looking up at him with more frankness than attempt to create distance between them. “Sirius… I can’t help but notice that you’ve been trying to get me alone quite a bit lately.”

He nodded decisively. “Yes.”

“Do you remember that I made a point of saying not to read into my…” she flushed, tripping over various graphic turners of phrase as they came to mind and were immediately rejected. 

“... into your absolutely rescuing me from misery and bad impulses on the worst night of my life, after which you let me be with you, again and again, even after you’d worn the edge off, until I’d spent several precious hours completely distracted from all the weight that hadn’t completely lifted from my shoulders in _years_?”

She realized her mouth was hanging open so hastily lifted her coffee up to it, taking a gulp as she tried to figure out a response to that.

She needn’t have, because he continued. “I want to know you, Hermione. I know I’m not entitled to anything from you, but we will… no matter what machinations I don’t yet know you've taken regarding Harry… we _will_ be in each other’s lives, and I have to say, everything from sharing a wall with you, hearing you spin in your desk chair aimlessly, and sigh, and turn pages, to seeing the way you hold your own with Dumbledore and Alastor... it _moves_ me. Beyond what I’m accustomed to from, well, anyone I’ve met in ages.”

She coughed a little; some coffee had gone down the wrong pipe. He was standing behind her in a flash, patting her back gently before he knelt at her bedside, picking up her hand in both of his. 

“I am not infatuated with an enigma. I learned better than to do that early. I am very, very intrigued by and interested in a woman I was initially disinclined to like because of association with awful circumstances, who on further acquaintance only manages to intrigue and bewitch me more and more. And I don't think you're indifferent to me.”

They both quieted a moment as Harry rolled over, stretching expansively for a long moment in his sleep. Sirius was still smiling tenderly at his godson when her eyes turned back to him, but he returned his attention to her shortly.

She'd had just long enough to bite her lip and seriously doubt her resolve. 

His eyes were as bold as ever when they came back to hers. “I'm putting myself at your disposal, Hermione. You've lost, in so many ways, more than anyone. You're barreling into trying to make things better despite nearly your every move guaranteeing the next iteration of yourself won't have the same life - including the bits that of childhood that were so strong a foundation they gave you the strength to endure quite a lot. You're protecting someone I love - and me too, for that matter - damn the personal consequences. And you're half sure you're just hallucinating it all - which you're not. But you're _not_ losing everything.”

He stood, then sat on the edge of the bed, facing her and cupping her cheek in his hand. ‘You’ve gained a world, too. Don’t so dedicate yourself to martyrdom that you fail to see it. For my part, well,” he chuckled, smoothing his thumb over her cheekbone, “however I can distract you, I'm here. When you get lonely or need to rant at someone, I'm here. If you need someone to watch your back, I want to be that person. Give me a chance. Give all of us a chance, and give yourself one, too.”

Her breath hitched. He leaned in, so slowly, giving her every chance to pull away - but she didn't. He reached her to press a slow, chaste kiss to her lips, the tips of his fingers tracing down her neck with maddening lightness. Then, finally, he withdrew, his eyes scorching hers as he put a few inches between them. 

Her stomach twisted and she fought the urge to lunge at him - and the urge to kick his ass out of the room. And then, with a sleepy, contented sigh, Harry lurched into them, having quietly stood up at some point while they were distracted, and threw himself into the middle of their tenuous embrace with complete trust he would be caught. 

"Huggies! Kississ!" he proclaimed as their arms came up around him, and they hugged him between them as he left a slightly wet smooch first on Hermione's nose, then on Sirius's cheek.

He then turned to Hermione gravely, pointing at his nappy. "Change?"

Sirius chuckled and swept up his godson, who laughed in delight as Sirius fluidly stood to twirl him around. "I'll help you with that, Harry. Let's let your… your _Hermione_ have a bath and get ready for the day. I saw your nappy sack and brought some breakfast, too. Then maybe we could try to get your Hermione to go have a walk with us - I know just the place, somewhere unplottable and inconspicuous - what do you say?"

"Ya!" Harry bounced up and down on his feet on Sirius's lap, delighted. "Outside! Outside outside!"

Hermione pursed her lips slightly. That probably wasn't _too_ risky. If they left Hogwarts discreetly. 

Sighing as Sirius winked and swept Harry off to the study for a change, she swung her legs out of bed. She paused to take a slow, deep breath before she stood and went to fill the tub. She hadn't expected insight and sincerity to be what the man wanted to corner her for, and she was thrown. 

The truth, she thought as she stepped into the steaming water some minutes later, after brushing her teeth and listening to distant chatter about "screggies," was that his approach had either been strategically brilliant or, even more troubling, sincere, heartfelt, and illustrative of exactly the sort of insight and character she’d determined would be prerequisite to any future serious entanglements upon her separation from Ron.

She sank into bubbles to her chin, letting her hand slip from her knee down her thigh, then further. She suspected she’d be in a very different position had Harry not been there. That Sirius had chosen not to press his case when she was alone, she realized, had just made him seem more sincere… and more fanciable. So, her lips parting with a low, quiet whine, she tried to stop thinking to alleviate the ache with her fingers so she could face them both again with a clearer head.

❧

### NORTHERN CORNWALL, GREAT BRITAIN

Herrmione stepped through into the Floo of the Head’s Office’s large fireplace with Sirius, who had tucked her to his chest with one arm and Harry to his shoulder with the other. 

They emerged into a large, brightly sunlit room with a high coffered ceiling and innumerable windows and skylights. The shapes of various pieces of furniture were obscured under white canvas drapes, and there was a thin layer of dust over the honey-colored oak plank floor. The walls were a pale yellow accented with cast plaster medallions and moulding, and a large french double-doors led on two sides to the outdoors - on one side, a balcony overlooking woods, and on the other, a small lawn surrounded by a cottage garden. On the other two sides of the room, white archways led into other dust-draped rooms, one of which appeared to be a foyer, the other a kitchen. 

Hermione stepped into the room and looked around with both curiosity and caution, casting a reflexive _Homenum Revelio_ that showed no other people present, along with several dust-banishments and some curse detectors. They appeared to be safe and alone. 

But then there were two loud cracks, and she jumped to put her back to a wall and to turn toward the new threat in an instant, wand raised.

Only… it was two house elves.

“Young Master Sirius! Oh, Young Master Sirius, thank goodness, thank _goodness_ it was you, oh, you cannot know how glad we are to welcome you home, sir…” said the elder, though both she and… perhaps her daughter?... threw themselves at Sirius’s knees in a staggeringly ferocious embrace. He caught his footing and smiled sheepishly at Hermione, who, after a moment, fumbled her wand back up her sleeve and stepped forward to take Harry from him, darting an inquiring glance down at the elves and back to Sirius.

Sirius was focusing his warm smile on the elves, though, and had dropped to one knee to kiss the hand of each gallantly in turn before sweeping the elder properly into his arms. “I would hardly see this place go to strangers, Madam Hilly, Miss Peapot. After… well… after everything we’ve lost, at the very least I had to take care of the house so that you could get to know Harry.” He smiled, releasing the sniffling older elf and giving her time to pull out a large, polkadot handkerchief to mop up her eyes. “May I introduce you to my friend, Miss Hermione Granger?”

Hermione smiled sheepishly, awkwardly dropping to her knees with Harry in her arms and extending a hand. “Hello! So lovely to meet you, Hilly, Peapot. I’m Hermione, and this is Harry.” 

The two elves went through the motions of shaking Hermione’s hand, and murmuring hellos, but their eyes were only for Harry. “This… this is young master James’ little one, then,” said Hilly. Peapot gingerly reached out to hold Harry’s hand, her eyes bright and full of something resembling awe. 

Hermione nodded her head, smiling a little. “You didn’t get to meet him?”

Hilly shook her head, still gazing serenely at Harry, who was now babbling at Peapot. “Hilly and Peapot got the Dragon Pox when the old Master and Mistress did, and with elves, Miss, it is lasting longer - not so dangerous, but very contagious. It was only a few months ago that we is recovering enough to see others, and Young Master James insisted we have the house to ourselves, as he and Mistress Lilly had already moved into their cottage and had to hide the itsy bitsy, teeny tiny, little Master Harry with his little tiny toes.” The elf, Hermione was bemused to see, appeared to be melting into Petunia Dursley-esque language and an absolute puddle of devotion.

Hermione blinked, standing again with Sirius following suit. “Hermione,” Sirius explained, making sure to turn himself such that the elves would continue to feel included in the conversation, “Welcome to Potterswood House. This is where James, and to an extent, _I_ grew up. I can’t say what might have happened to it had I wound up in Azkaban, but when the estate put it on the market a few months ago - it had just been too painful for him to be here after Itchy and Cusses died -”

“-Itchy and _Cusses?!_ ” Hermione broke in, taken aback.

Sirius nodded, taking Harry and beginning to walk toward the balcony doors. “Em, better known as Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. But anyway. Well, when the estate was put up for sale, I made enquiries, but didn’t want to sadden James by taking it. I have only happy memories here - even including the late inhabitants’ decline. I was actually surprised when it stayed on the market after James’ will was read a few days ago, but I had no conflict in taking it. And I thought, well, that Harry should know it. The cottage is a legacy I don’t know could or should be repaired, but this was his family’s home for generations, after Peverell Park hid in a snit over the Potters’ preference for this smaller home.”

Hermione mouthed the last several words he’d said in shock, shaking her head as she tried to process it, her feet automatically following him. “That… well. Harry hadn’t the slightest idea of any of this existing.”

Sirius nodded. “It was set so that the proceeds - well, is _still_ set so that the proceeds - will go to him at the age of thirty. I think his parents wanted him taken care of but not so well it might hinder his drive to make his own way in the world. You should have seen Lily go absolutely apoplectic when she realized her fiance hadn’t given any real thought to pursuing further education or a career following Hogwarts,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling. “But now it’s mine, and Harry will have his cake and eat it too.”

Hermione gaped, following him through the door onto the balcony. “I… _Merlin’s beard_ , Sirius!”

The balcony overlooked a large wooded cliffside just past the foot of the house, some two storeys down. A wide, rock-strewn stream that wound around the foundation on both sides, leaving a little room for lovely little gardens beside the house proper, plummeted over the cliff’s edge to form breathtaking twin waterfalls into a large pool below, perhaps 60 feet down. The pool was clear and deep, and there were a couple of stone stairs hewn into the vertiginous wall downward by which it and the garden and little guest house beside it could be reached. The pool, meanwhile, eventually drained into a large stream or small river, which in the distance went through woods, to fields of flowers, and ultimately emptied into the sea, or perhaps even the ocean. 

Sirius was looking at her lit-up expression appreciatively when she looked back at him, and she blushed when he showed no shame to have been caught at it. “The lands go all the way to the Irish sea, as far as we can see here. We’re somewhere in northern Cornwall, I think, or so close as to be engulfed, at least, in the culture. It’s a good place for a young man to get into mischief.”

Hermione’s eyes lit on a diving board between the two waterfalls, very high above the pool below, and then shifted back to Sirius. “I’ll bet.”

He grinned behind an entranced Harry, who was reaching for some overhanging tree limbs. “ _That_ was James’ idea.” He shook his head as she looked at him skeptically. “Not that I tried to talk him out of it - it’s _bloody_ brilliant, wait until you try -”

“AHEM! Young master is not saying such words in front of even younger master, thanks!” Hilly snapped, hands on her hips. Peapot was busily vanishing the clothes from lovely but comfortable and well-used looking furniture, including a cherry grand piano and several couches and armchairs. 

Sirius paled. “Em, Hilly, I thought that perhaps we might relax that rule, now that-”

Hilly shook her head. “You and Mistress Hermione can be saying what you likes, but not when young Master Harry is here. Mistress Hermione is… is…” She squinted between Hermione and Harry, then Hermione and Sirius, seeming perplexed. “Is… family, too?” she ended, giving up on pinning it down further.

Hermione’s mouth opened, then closed again. She felt exceptionally awkward as she realized how much she’d been lulled into feeling at home - and as if she were, indeed, family. It was, however, a great deal more complicated than that.

Sirius, however, did not hesitate to nod. “Yes, she is. I imagine she’d like the grand tour, which I’d like to give her if it’s alright with you. And perhaps, well, if you’d like, young master Harry wouldn’t mind a tour of the nursery and a bath. His nibs is smelling rather less like a daisy than when we set out.” Sirius offered put Harry on his feet beside the taller Hilly with a wrinkle of his nose. 

Hilly looked like she’d … been asked to clean Buckingham Palace, likely, though Hermione hoped someday to meet another elf who would be elated to receive clothes. Her work in the Department of Mysteries had forced her to be a little more … _gradual_ in her approach to general elf liberation. Thrusting freedom upon elves too quickly, it turned out, often caused them to waste away and even, sometimes, die. 

And so when the elf took Harry’s hand and led him off, Sirius offered his. “Do you like large, well-stocked libraries with meticulously indexed catalogues, perchance?”

Admitting defeat to herself, she knit her fingers with his. “You… are either extremely devious or very determined to win me over, aren’t you?”

He swung their joined hands between them as he pulled her off through the foyer arch, his smirk rather smug. “Oh, Hermione - why on earth do you think I’d settle for just _one_ when I could be _both?”_


	24. Rat Catching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:
> 
> Imperius Curse, Rape, and an Order Member almost doing something terrible under incredible strain.

Despite nearly losing herself - and very nearly her resolve to keep her knickers about her - in the Potterswood Library, Hermione returned to Hogwarts in time to tidy herself, let the Longbottoms know that Harry would be with Sirius overnight, and knock crisply on Minerva’s study door at 6 precisely.

McGonagall opened it with a haughty sniff, as if irritated she hadn’t been either early or late, and let the door swing open with an air of begrudging good manners. 

Hermione swallowed and followed, shutting the door quietly behind herself and then following her erstwhile friend to the second of two wingback chairs that faced the fire. There were a number of what looked like personal documents in stacks, bound ledgers, and rolls on the table betwixt the chairs - including one roll that was open just enough to show a vaguely familiar corner. 

It was a map of some sort.

Hermione smiled tentatively, gesturing to collection. “Seeing to a family estate?”

McGonagall shifted in her seat to face Hermione better, scrutinizing her. “No. Well. Yes, I suppose. But that is of little import.” After a moment, she shook her head, vanishing the papers away. “I asked you here because the headmaster and I learned earlier today that Peter Pettigrew has been located living in Muggle London. Alastor was able to put a watch on him without letting it be widely known that he was involved in the Potters’ betrayal - at least temporarily. He tripped the spell that watches for instances of underage magic, of all things,” she said, shaking her head. “No known wizards regularly do business in the area. It appears that he has installed himself in a residence.”

Hermione blinked. “Where?”

Minerva nodded, having expected this. “In a townhouse on Old Queens Road, Westminster.” 

Hermione gaped. “But… that’s right near the palace!” She reeled, sitting back and massaging at her temples, her eyes flickering closed as she thought. “There was a police officer and a queen’s guard among the dead when Sirius confronted him… and a guitarist. Maybe a busker? And we didn’t even know he was an Auror, he might’ve used the same resources to find Pettigrew. Pettigrew might’ve  _ known _ any confrontation would give him a chance to fake his own death, or that anyone cautious would’ve avoided confronting him there… no one could’ve known he’d prove so capable of holing up in one place for so long, though that was with a magical family, where he knew what was going on… but… hmm…”

Minerva cleared her throat and when Hermione jerked straight in her seat, eyes opening, she saw that the Transfiguration professor looked rather put out. “I’m sorry, but perhaps you might continue this in the form of a conversation, given that I am, in fact,  _ here?” _

Hermione shook her head, mortified. “Sorry, so sorry, it’s just… it’s a lot to try to sort through. Em.” She searched her mind a moment. “So Wormtail-”

_ “Wormtail?” _ McGonagall repeated, confused.

Hermione shrugged. “It’s his nickname from school, but Voldemort calls him that too.”

Minerva shook her head and summoned two cups and a pot of tea, gesturing for Hermione to go on as she poured. 

“Em, has Dumbledore told you that James, Sirius, and Peter were unregistered Animagi?” Hermione ventured.

The stream of tea from the pot trailed onto the saucer for an instant before returning to the cup under Minerva’s hand. “He did  _ not. _ What animals?”

“Em, James was a stag, Sirius is a big black dog that sends Trelawney into paroxysms of horror, and Peter is a rat,” Hermione said. “They did it so they could be with Remus when he transformed without fear of infection.”

Minerva sighed, sitting back in her chair and sipping her tea as she gazed toward the fire. “I always said those boys would’ve been brilliant were they not so  _ determined _ to be absolute idiots.”

Hermione nodded wearily before continuing. “Anyway, in my time, probably around where he is now, Peter somehow knew Sirius was coming and arranged an outside confrontation in a crowded place - maybe even in front of the Buckingham Palace or thereabouts - such that he made it look, to Muggle witnesses, as if Sirius killed him and yelling about his innocence. Then he cut off his finger and caused a huge explosion that killed several onlookers and injured Sirius, who was just laughing madly when the Aurors arrived at the scene. There were 12 Muggles dead, as I recall. Everyone thought - for years! - that Peter was so obliterated that that finger was all that was left of him, but in fact he made the explosion uncover sewer pipes, which were his probable escape route after he transformed into a rat.”

Minerva was shaking her head, looking repulsed. “I knew he liked to hang on to the coattails of the more powerful and charismatic, but this… I would never have guessed Peter capable of it.”

Hermione shivered. “By the time I … well,  _ properly _ met him, he was fairly repulsive. But he may have been … I don’t know, seduced. Tortured. Imperiused, threatened, who knows  _ what _ else, at the start? I think, though, that he’s almost certainly become a murderer - and not just by proxy - by now. Corruption keeps Death Eaters close to their master, and I suspect that - at least for most - there was some sort of ritual violence linked to earning the Dark Mark.” Suddenly remembering something, she swore under her breath, causing Minerva to furrow her brow in censure. “Em, sorry. I just realized he must’ve been at Godric’s Hollow, too. Either shortly after or right before Severus and I got to Harry’s nursery, somehow. It  _ must _ have been before, though the timing - eh, but I can’t imagine, even in the wreckage, that I’d have missed Voldemort’s wand, which Pettigrew ended up with. Unless there was some manner of protection on it...”

Minerva shook her head. “As I have it from Alastor, the wand  _ was  _ under some enchantment that made it difficult to detect by anyone other than his owner when he was not wielding it. The Aurors discovered it in their investigation of the scene, and took it into evidence at the Ministry.”

Hermione goggled. “Maybe  _ that’s _ how he ended up with the Weasleys!”

McGonagall blinked. “What, Arthur and Molly? Their eldest, William, will be attending next year, I believe.”

Hermione nodded rapidly. “Arthur found a seemingly tame rat unattended at the Ministry, and brought it home for a pet for Percy, their third son. He’d be… five or so, now?”

McGonagall’s mouth settled into a grim line. “That sounds correct, yes.”

Hermione shook her head. “Hell. Well, we might need to find a safer place to put it than evidence, then, or increase security there somehow.”

McGonagall, slowly, shook her own. “I… suspect that, one way or another, given the speeds at which bureaucracies change and the power of determined individuals with no regard for the law or the safety or others, we might need to take some unorthodox initiative there. There are almost certainly still Aurors on You-Know-Who’s side who know where the wand currently resides, yet to be uncovered within DMLE’s organization. There are no less than three we have under suspicion right now - oh, and the ‘we’ I refer to here is the Order.”

Hermione’s eyes scanned left to right as she thought rapidly, almost as though she were reading. “We need to get Molly and Arthur in the Order… but maybe also to head Peter off before he can become part of their home. How to do it, though? How would Peter have known Sirius were coming, and would it also alert him to other witches or wizards approaching?”

Minerva looked thoughtful for a moment. “It could have been specific to Sirius, in light of the small circle of people who knew. The easiest thorough thing to do - and as I’ve said, brilliant if not an idiot, even Peter - might be to do something specific to Sirius  _ and _ to alert one of other witches and wizards separately, particularly since there is no general spell for witches and wizards transformed into animals  _ but _ a spell specific to Sirius would have found him in any form. Hmm.”

Hermione looked slowly at Minerva, whose eyes were scanning while she thought in precisely the way her former pupil’s had mere moments ago. “Cats, I understand, are efficient rat catchers.”

Minerva merely nodded grimly, continuing to think behind the steam of her tea. 

Hermione sighed. “But I don’t think you should go alone, and I think Sirius… is too easily provoked, as much as he’s been able to calm down before striking out this time.” She pursed her lips. “Are there other suitable Animagi in the order?”

Minerva shrugged, straightening and swiveling her gaze to Hermione again. “Not anymore. But I am not the Transfiguration professor for nothing. If I may?” McGonagall held out her hand toward the younger woman’s tea. Hermione, slowly, relinquished it, saucer and all, eyes wary. 

Minerva’s wand moved with such decisive speed that Hermione couldn’t have defended herself. When the Gryffindor Head sat back in her chair, nodding in satisfaction and seeming, somehow, to loom over Hermione, she opened her mouth to protest… only it came out as a baleful “Mrrrrooooow!”

McGonagall looked a bit smug as Hermione looked down in shock, taking in two bushy brown legs with black tabby stripes and long tufts between paw-toes. With an experimental tensing, she managed to unsheathe her claws, a low growl rumbling in her through unbidden.

“Oh, do stop fretting,” McGonagall said unconcernedly, shooting a soft “ _ Finite”  _ Hermione’s way. 

The again-human witch sputtered in indignation. “Hea...Professor  _ McGonagall! _ ” The elder woman chortled into her tea, eyes twinkling. “I… I have exceptionally bad memories regarding finding myself unexpectedly feline, I’ll have you know! Would a little warning have killed you? That was…  _ so  _ unnecessary!” 

McGonagall shrugged, still shaking with mirth. “As were any number of other rash things  _ you’ve _ done.”

Hermione drew herself up with haughtiness Minerva thought she herself might’ve been a template for, though it took her aback. “I,” Hermione said, “am quite sorry that I’ve created mess where you wanted order, but  _ your Order _ was failing miserably, and frankly it was sheer dumb luck Voldemort got vanquished long enough for there to be a detente before the second war. Meanwhile, I ask that, in light of a dear friendship we once had, and in light of my actions being in keeping with the Gryffindor virtues  _ you  _ encouraged in me, you cease to treat me as if I’m halfway your adversary, here.”

Minerva shrugged. “I’ll take that under advisement,” she smirked.

Hermione crossed her arms, sulking. “Fine. I was  _ going _ to come up with an excuse for you to use  _ Piertotum Locomotor _ on the castle’s statuary  _ despite  _ the fact I hope there won’t be a Battle of Hogwarts again-”

“-WHAT?!”

“-but it seems we shan’t be friends, so perhaps such a gesture is unnecessarily elaborate,” Hermione finished, examining her fingernails. 

Minerva fumed. “Fine, I’ll try to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Hermione glowered, tossing her hair and recrossing her arms. “Then we’d better come up with a plan, and fast.”

❧

###  WESTMINSTER, LONDON

So it was that, shortly before midnight, two cats - both tabbies of similar coloration, one longhaired and the other short - sat on the step of the service door to a posh London downhouse. 

McGonagall, somehow, had managed to include everything Hermione had on her - including her already-compressed bag, which was not supposed to be possible - in her transformation, along with a silent charm Hermione herself could use to become human again in the event of some disaster befalling the  _ real _ Animagus. 

Hermione was irked to find herself reflexively licking her paw to wash her whiskers as they sat for a moment, Minerva’s feline face screwed up in concentration, until she heard…

_ Damn _ , as a cat she’d managed a spell to ring the bell? 

Hermione shook her head, nearly sneezing at the tickle of her own ruff, reflecting not for the first time that Hogwarts’ faculty didn’t teach nearly all they knew. And then they waited.

A few moments later, a rumpled butler, his starched cuff stained and tie askew, opened the door, looking left and right from his own eye level as the two felines ghosted in past his feet. One shoe was untied, and they were on the wrong feet, Hermione noticed.

The butler huffed in irritation, muttering something about little wankers as he wandered back down the hall they’d emerged into, as the two cats watched from just inside the kitchen doorway.

There were two women in here, looking careworn and tired and frayed, just like the butler, who were feverishly making pastries and puddings. Hermione recognized a bakewell tart and a victoria sponge in progress, and also took in the various little burns along the knuckles of both bakers.

The two cats looked at each other grimly. It looked very much as if at least all the members of the household they’d yet met were under the Imperius Curse. 

Several tastefully decorated parlors and dens and studies later, up a flight of stairs, they spotted a woman tossing and turning in bed through a door left ajar. She was blonde and possessed the sort of posh loveliness conjured by princess stories when read to children of the upper classes. And she was clearly having a nightmare. 

The room, though, was … impersonal. Hermione nosed the door open a bit wider to look around. No luggage, but no clothes in the closet, just some dirty articles on the floor. Hermione fought back a sick sense of foreboding as she padded back out the door, rejoining McGonagall and then heading for the next flight of stairs.

_ This _ floor smelled wrong. Like… sweat, and dirty bodies, and… oh no. 

This time, they didn’t look at each other, just starting to trot silently toward the large double doors, open at the end of the hall. 

Within, a man could be heard whimpering and muttering, though two people breathed within. 

❧

Peter was here, in the large, disordered bed, its curtains open. He was so young and had spent so much less time as a rat that, but for the watery eyes and the occasionally twitching nose, she might have found him unrecognizable. He could, in a certain light, even have attained a sort of attractiveness, had he carried himself confidently.

The second man was handsome, in his early forties perhaps. Hermione recognized him, she thought, as the younger version of a still-active politician - an MP? - from her own time. But, as he moved especially, he also… he bore a rather eerie resemblance to  _ Sirius _ , though he was sufficiently shorter in stature that Petigrew appeared significantly taller than he rather than the other way around..

She couldn’t tell if the similarity extended to the man’s eyes because they were screwed shut right now, streaming tears, as his mouth compressed to a thin line, his jaw twitching.

The two were under the bed’s austere-but-expensive-looking beige quilt, and Pettigrew was lying curled behind the other man. The movement was muddled, slow, but… when Peter leaned his head down to lick along the politician’s neck, Hermione’s stomach lurched in horror.

One of Pettigrew’s hands emerged from under the covers to grip the man’s hair, bending his head back so that he could look at it and, she saw, crying  _ himself  _ as he mumbled. “Had to, Padfoot, had to. You’d never given  _ me _ a second look, had you? And Marlene… Marlene was just a distraction.” 

The man’s eyes flickered open for a moment, looking up at Peter, who promptly snarled and let go his hair to slap him, screeching out an unhinged-sounding  _ “ _ Keep them shut keep them shut  _ keep them shut, _ damn you!” 

The eyes had been Imperius-glazed - and brown-black, unlike Sirius Black’s gray.

As Hermione and Minerva slipped through adjoining closets along the side of the room, peering out their doors in dread as they approached a closer point from which to proceed, Hermione shuddered, her fur standing on end, her back arching involuntarily. Wormtail was relaxing again, shuddering rhythmically as he let his arm fall back back against the bed’s ornate headboard. 

Apparently, he got comfortable enough to continue talking. 

“Marlene… a distraction…  _ He _ would have killed them anyway, Sirius, don’t you see it’s not my fault? She was just a plaything anyhow, I  _ know _ who you were really after… made it so, so easy, didn’t it…” He sniffled, starting to sob - but only clinging to his captive harder for it.

Hermione felt increasingly sick. She glanced to Minerva, who also looked… on the verge of producing a hairball. Surely they were close enough? But Minerva, slinking low to the floor, darted out, heading under the bed and toward its head.

As Hermione gathered her nerve and followed, she noticed that a wand lay on a pillow just to Pettigrew’s side - Minerva was likely right to seek every advantage, wait as long as it took to gain strategic ground, but Hermione’s gut twisted, Grayback’s voice echoing in her mind -  _ “Pretty little friend… who are you, girly?” _

No one had saved  _ this  _ Muggle from Death Eater predation in time.

Two wedding bands lay in the dust beneath the bed. Hermione took care not to disturb them or make any other noise as she passed.

Finally, as they got to the end of the headboard, Minerva stood still, cringing as a long moan sounded above them, interspersed with Wormtail’s sobs.

A moment later, the body of the Muggle fell to one side of the bed, startling them both, his glazed eyes slightly open and blinking after he landed, his mouth screwed shut and his body curling into a fetal position on the floor as the sobs above turned to wails. 

She couldn’t stand it anymore. She cast the wordless spell necessary to restore her human form, with Minerva transforming immediately after her but not in time to beat her to drawing her wand and growling  _ “Petrificus Totalus!” _ over the head of the bed, freezing the naked, crying turncoat in his nest of torn sheets and violating magic.

Even as she did, though, she caught Minerva, still moving, out of the corner of her eye, starting to mouth the words  _ “Confri-” _

“-NO!” Hermione gasped, yanking the professor’s wand up to send an explosion up through the bed canopy and straight through the ornately coffered ceiling. Minerva squirmed stubbornly, her face contorted in rage, but she didn’t fight hard enough to prevent Hermione from yanking her wand away in horror. 

Hermione stood, blinking at her idol, whose ashen face was fixed. McGonnagall’s shoulders shook, her breath ragged, and Hermione stood watching her carefully for several long seconds before lifting her own wand again, leaving Minerva to stand there as she cast a flurry of  _ Reparo _ charms and then started some medical diagnostics and healing charms on the Muggle man. Pettigrew, mostly frozen, managed to follow her with twitching eyes as she worked. She threw a blanket over him in disgust, leaving only his hands and forearms visible - including one that was clearly freshly Marked - and pocketed his wand. 

After several minutes of treating minor contusions and scrapes with potions from her bag, Hermione looked up again, sighing. She didn’t dare contaminate the scene further. She knew from her own training that, without the Auror-affiliated Healer team on hand, the man might do himself harm if she broke the  _ Imperius Curse _ that still entrapped him. 

From the state of the room, she would guess Wormtail got here not long after the Potters’ deaths. She didn’t think she would be trying to make a friend of this enemy, she thought, stomach still roiling.

And then she looked again at Minerva, perhaps most shaken by the streak of wild violence she’d witnessed in this stolid hero’s actions tonight. Reluctantly, Hermione stepped back in front of her. Now, at least, she looked remorseful, her eyes downcast and wet.

“Minerva,” Hermione said slowly, softly. “If I give you your wand back, do I have your  _ word _ that you’ll use it to send a  _ Patronus _ to Moody to bring the Aurors, rather than to make another attempt on Peter’s life?”

McGonagall sniffed, looking up. “You do.”

Hermione gave her the wand, and a deep breath later, she sent the Patronus. 

❧

###  HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Hermione sat across Dumbledore’s desk from him, watching the milk swirl as she began to stir her tea. It was perhaps 3 AM, now.

She had Side-Along Apparated Minerva back to the school gate around 2, and guided the unresisting professor back to her rooms and suggesting she ought perhaps to go to bed before she sent a Patronus of her own to Dumbledore. 

She had not given Minerva back her wand - but she did relinquish it to Sprout when she knocked on the study door, admitting her to sit watch there as Minerva slept while Hermione went to talk to the Headmaster.

Dumbledore was looking at her with concern and care when she finally looked up. 

She sighed. “I never would have imagined she had that in her.”

Dumbledore nodded, putting down his own tea. “Indeed, under virtually any other circumstances, I believe you would find she did  _ not.” _

Hermione shook her head, just… overwhelmed, and exhausted. “It was awful. It was one of the worst things I’ve had to see, and I’ve seen horrible things. He had the entire house under his whim. The man’s wife was sleeping downstairs. I have no idea how the DMLE and the Healers will ever put them to rights. Those people… how do you whisk away such nightmarish trauma, even if you  _ do  _ erase the memories of what caused it?”

Dumbledore shook his head, holding out his empty hands. “I understand that they  _ can  _ help, but of Mind Healing I admit I know far too little to tell you enough to satisfy you. You might ask Remus. He attended Oxford, after Hogwarts, you know - we thought that a Muggle credential might help him despite … anticipated difficulties with employment in even the Muggle world, in light of his condition. He read Psychology, as I understand it. While it isn’t the Mind Healing mastery he would have liked, and while I worry despair may now impede his efforts to go back next year for doctoral studies, I believe it did give him some peace and a greater understanding of his own demons.”

Hermione shook her head, sipping her tea, before she spoke. “I had no idea.”

Dumbledore nodded sadly. “The history of marginalized people is often told badly, and too often not told at all. No matter how heroic they might be. No matter how heroic each individual  _ must _ be to survive the oppressed states they endure due to the quite accidental circumstances of their birth.”

Hermione sighed. Dear Godric, she hadn’t cried as much as she had lately since Ron left her and Harry in the tent. She was  _ sick _ to  _ death _ of crying. She refused. 

“Do you have any idea why Minerva reacted the way she did, tonight, sir?”

“Please call me Albus, Hermione.”

She sighed in exasperation. “Right, and I’ll call Merlin by whatever his first name was, shall I?”

Dumbledore blinked a moment and then blushed, chuckling softly. “My goodness, well, what a comparison!”

Hermione narrowed her eyes over her teacup. “Not a uniformly flattering one, sir.”

He nodded readily. “Nor would I deserve such. I believe, though, that he went by just the one name - like a few of the contemporary Muggle musical artists I enjoy, actually. But,” he continued lightly, “You asked about our friend.”

Hermione nodded grimly and put her cup down, devoting herself fully to listening.

“I had hoped… well, she has a suitor, our Minerva, and I  _ had  _ thought that he was getting somewhere with her… but… well, I hope this does not damage his cause, because I think some love would do her good, and that she is not without reciprocating affection.” Dumbledore gnawed his lip a moment - something she’d never seen him unguarded enough to do before, Hermione realized. “You see, Hermione, Minerva has lost a great deal this war, especially in the very recent past. Her youngest brother, Robert, was killed around a year ago by Death Eaters. Shortly after that,” he sighed, index fingers tracing circles over his temples, “the love of her life, a Muggle farmer to whom she was briefly engaged and with whom she kept up a long, pining correspondence, died in a random Death Eater attack - along with his wife and children - for which she blames herself. She didn’t marry him in order to protect him from the sort of bitterness her own father felt as a Muggle marrying a witch, you see - but she now wonders now if she might have saved him from something far worse if she had instead stayed by his side.” Hermione’s eyes widened as she listened - she’d known some of this had happened, but she’d never really had a sense of how quickly one thing had followed another. Dumbledore, in the meanwhile, only looked more tired. “The depredations he and his family suffered before they were finally killed… they were truly ghastly, and may account for her reaction this night.”

Hermione gulped, slowly slumping back into her chair as she tried to tally what toll all this must have taken. _. _

Dumbledore spread his hands. “I believe that James and Lily’s death, as some of her favorite students and very dear friends - she danced with Sirius at their wedding, did you know? - may have been a near-breaking point, but this night… Minerva puts a great deal of love, when all is said and done, into her students. To see one of them engaged in such an unspeakable act of violation must have been beyond what she could take.”

Hermione sighed, and they both drank their tea without any apparent taste for it in silence for some minutes.

Finally, she broke the silence. “What happens now?”

Albus shrugged. “I think Minerva needs to heal, and I do not think she should teach this year. This is a conversation she and I have already had - she’s entitled to a sabbatical, or perhaps a long honeymoon. I believe Elphinstone, if he will see her through this, could be invaluable to her recovery. I also believe that he, given their long acquaintance and his own background in the DMLE and the war, will be able to sympathize. 

“I, meanwhile,” he smiled wearily, “will not suffer overmuch, I don’t think, if I must temporarily take over Minerva’s classes whilst other arrangements are made.”

“And Pettigrew?” Hermione asked.

“Will go to Azkaban without opportunity to bargain, testify, or prolong the hideousness of war through an extended trial - not how I would prefer the matter be handled, however I might sympathize with curtailing the drawn out horror of the war to date. Preparations are already being made for a cell that will hold him despite his…  _ abilities _ .”

Hermione looked at Albus thoughtfully, and did so for long enough that eventually he spoke. “May I inquire, my dear, what you are thinking? And bravo - I know you are exhausted, and that not much time has passed, but I see your Occlumency is already keeping your thoughts from projecting themselves reflexively.”

Hermione shook her head. “You never told the Dementors about Sirius being an Animagus.”

Albus nodded slowly. “Hmm. Imagine that.”

She narrowed her eyes, but he added nothing else. Not now, anyway.

But another thought occurred to her, breaking bleakly across her mind. “Albus… maybe I shouldn’t have stopped her. In my time… the Dementors defected to Voldemort’s side, and freed all the Death Eaters before terrorizing the countryside - Muggles and magical folk alike.”

Albus shook his head slowly. “If you had done that, my dear, it would have broken something integral to the character of a brave woman we both love, and that would be a tragedy beyond reckoning. I think it might have broken something in you, too.” He sighed. “Besides, magic - and the choice not to use it - have a way of leaving their mark. The time may come when you will be very glad you saved Pettigrew's life.”

Hermione wrinkled her nose at the tickle of deja vu. “As long as he doesn’t get an evil hand and Voldemort doesn’t get a new body this time.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She shook her head, feeling the creep of fatigue within her. “I… oh, sufficient unto the day, sir.”

He nodded sagely, letting a small silence pool between them before he spoke again. “Perhaps, my dear, whilst I go and talk to my dear old friend, you should try to get some sleep.”

Hermione nodded, standing unsteadily as the full force of her soul-deep weariness rolled over her. “I think I may need to.”

As she approached the door, he cleared his throat - and she turned just in time for a phial of Dreamless Sleep to float into her hands. 

Dumbledore shrugged at her inquiring glance, and said, “I think you may need to, too. Peace to you, Hermione.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, well. there's another bit of overhanging doom plot sorted. Interested to hear from you on how it went - and whether Minerva's recent behavior might be a little more understandable now. A note, however, that her situation is not entirely resolved. 
> 
> Also: please forgive me my typos. At some point, when people who sometimes beta for me and I sleep better again, I will try to retroactively tidy them - but I worry if I wait for that, I won't get things out the door in the meantime and writing will stall, which would make me sad.


	25. New Normal, New Wave

### NOVEMBER 10, 1981

Hermione slept through the entirety of Monday proper and had to be told to get out and get some fresh air by Moody, no less, when they ran into each other in the hall around 3:00 AM Tuesday. The Auror seemed to have decided, after the Westminster Incident (as it was now being called), that Hermione really _was_ on the side of the true and the just.

When she was on her way out of the castle, though _,_ she was delayed - _Sirius_ managed, having heard of what she’d done and what she’d been through, to catch her off guard and sweep her into a disused old storage closet after breakfast. When she stumbled out, straightening herself from nothing more than a long stretch of being held and soothed an hour later, she _did_ feel a bit less on edge.

The walk to Hogsmeade was long and blessedly solitary. She tried to remember the shapes of the trees as she walked through the grounds, taking a meandering route - so many were familiar but noticeably smaller than her mind insisted they ought to be. There, she had hidden with her own Harry, the Time-Turner around their necks, baying at an older Remus. There, she’d gotten Ron full in the face with a snowball and he’d grinned at her with pride instead of being sour about it. Luna’d sat there to read all the time on nice days, avoiding the more popular spots by the lake, until finally Hermione and Ginny had started sitting there with her after the battle and they’d had to shoo others away to keep it from getting overcrowded.

She took a late morning tea at an outside table at Madam Puddifoots and dipped into her backlog of Muggle novels. There wasn’t enough fiction in the Wizarding world, and besides, she rather liked the works of Terry Pratchett when life got her down. She charmed the covers to look stodgy and blank to avoid awkward questions - both about Muggle origins _and_ about publishing dates. She hoped, meanwhile, that Mr. Pratchett would not mind _too_ much that she’d _Geminio’d_ the lot of them for Alice, who had taken her advice to start with the Watch books and come back to Rincewind only if she felt really, really compelled to do so.

After tea and a surreptitious pull from a flask of firewhiskey Seamus had given her as a gag graduation gift (only because neither of them ever thought she’d be the type to use it), she steeled herself for the onerous task that was _shopping_. 

She gritted her teeth and headed into Gladrags, where a helpful salesperson had a measuring tape zooming around her from the moment she closed the door behind her. “Oooo, welcome welcome! I smell a _makeover!”_

❧

Hermione walked out three hours later absolutely beset with bags.

She reflected, grimly satisfied, that at LEAST she’d managed to avoid shoulder pads and puffed sleeves. And pale greys and rodenty browns. Good lord, after seeing Pettigrew again, however human he’d been, she had no desire to see those colors again in a hurry. 

Jewel tones, she decided, were fine, though - as long as the fabric wasn’t synthetic, at least.

She felt a little smug seeing a number of posters featuring riotous curls just like hers outside the local hair stylist’s shop (though she was resolved NOT to try bangs again, thanks) as she ducked into an alley to shove her various spoils into the beaded bag. Doing magic in public was one thing - but the extension charm… well. 

Glancing at a pair of stiletto-heeled leather boots as they disappeared into the bag, she thought for a moment and then, as she’d traded some galleons for sterling yesterday anyhow, she Apparated to the safe zone in the Tottenham Court Road tube station to find some period-appropriate Muggle clothing, too.

❧

It was fairly impossible _not_ to go into the shop she saw Debbie Harry walk out of. 

As Hermione stepped out of the headmaster’s Floo later, having gotten permission to do so via Patronus, she bent her neck to sniff the buttery leather lapel of her new jacket. It was gorgeous red leather that tapered to a narrow waist and wrapped at the front a bit, deliciously indecisive about whether to be a morning coat or a motorcycle jacket, with braided silver toggle closures in a diagonal line across her chest and waist. 

It _might_ have broken the no shoulder pads rule, but only a little, and it made her feel glorious. 

Both a pale Remus, furrowed of brow, and an almost immediately leering Sirius looked up from the table where they were playing gin rummy in the small sitting area when she stepped through the door at the far end of the hall, probably each curious about the smell of new leather. 

She smiled sheepishly and spun, barely wobbling on the new boots with her new black stirrup pants tucked into them. “Do I look like a temporal local yet?”

Remus leaned back thoughtfully, nodding his head, and Sirius stood up, walking over and making a show of walking around her for a closer inspection, the backs of his knuckles barely grazing her hips as he did so. “I think you’ll do, yeah.”

She snorted and elbowed him in the stomach, sending him a step back, looking both wounded and amused, and making Remus throw his head back laughing. 

She rolled her eyes as Sirius began to bark his own distinctive laugh, too. 

Remus finally gathered himself, shaking his head. “You’ll have to forgive Padfoot, Hermione. He has such conflicted feelings about people who’re prettier than him.”

Sirius gave his friend a snarky little glance, one brow raised in incredulity. “Hardly _conflicted_. It’s when I don’t get to pick them up and drag them somewhere to undress them that problems arise, I think you’ll find.”

Remus and Hermione cracked up this time, and Hermione walked over to sit on the werewolf’s armrest so the two could smirk at Sirius in tandem. “I suppose he knows he _can’t_ just, and that’s something, at least,” she said. 

“Hmmph,” said Remus, who was rather more subtly looking her up and down, to her surprise, when she looked over and down at him. 

She snapped in his face as his eyes stuck at her hips. “Oi, the eyes are up here, you overgrown dogs. I suppose I’ve shopped correctly at least.” She shook her head. “What are you both up to this evening, anyway? Care to deal me in? I would so enjoy the opportunity to repeatedly trounce you,” she added, smiling sweetly at one then the other.

Remus swept the cards up with a graceful economy of movement, shaking his head. “We were waiting for you, actually - wanted to see if you’d come down to the Three Broomsticks with us for a pint.” He glanced at her feet. “Which is an open offer still if you can walk that far in those things.”

She snickered. “ _These_ boots were made for prancing, darling. Let’s go get that pre-moon edge off you, then.”

❧

By the time they were walking back, several hours and numerous drinks later, they took turns demonstrating their sexiest walks and alternatingly catcalling at each other then conferring in mock seriousness about ratings on a scale of ten. 

Remus did this incredible American cowboy masculine thing with thumbs hitched near his hip bones and a piece of grass he’d picked between his lips that made Sirius ask Hermione if she had any smelling salts.

It was Sirius, though, who made Hermione and Remus cry uncle, falling on each other for support laughing. He’d dropped his hanky just inside the hall where all their rooms were, then slid his back _slowly_ down a polished marble column until he was in a low crouch on his toes, knees spread wide despite his tight trousers, his back arched ludicrously to accentuate his leather-clad ass and one hand covering his mouth with a look of over-the-top innocence in his wide eyes as he picked up the scrap of scarlet silk and tucked it down his half-unbuttoned shirt with a wink.

Sirius was _also_ the one who made the other two drink two glasses of water each before they could disappear into their rooms, and who tucked Hermione in with some extremely enthusiastic cunnilingus and slipped out her door before she’d come back down to earth enough to realize he was gone. 

But she was barely incensed a moment before she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought we were due a bit of fun.


	26. Apollo of the Moon

###  NOVEMBER 11, 1981

Wednesday, however, required a great deal of work - so it was a good thing Sirius had seen to it they all had hangover potion awaiting them in the morning.

A very pale Remus told her at breakfast that he had, indeed, been taking the potion as prescribed. She’d seen one cup of the finished product - enough to know that Snape was  _ already  _ better at brewing it than she was, irksome bat that he was. But Remus remained very anxious, and wondered if it wouldn’t be better for him to go to the shack. 

Sirius, from whom this could hardly all be kept, enthusiastically offered to accompany him - but Lupin shook his head, eyes skating to the side as he reminded his old friend of classes early Thursday. 

Hermione knew he had a visceral, miserable response to time spent in that place, though - and one that could hardly be improved by what had happened with James and Peter - so  _ she  _ offered to sit with Remus. At the expected protests from  _ both _ Marauders, she argued that she’d done so before, with and without the potion, and gave enough substantiating detail to prove her truthfulness. She even, gritting her teeth, said she’d have him start the night bound and caged in silver if need be, and would only let him out after both were convinced and he was able to communicate that he was in control of himself. 

She knew the necessary apparatus to do this, after all, was available right there in the castle. A large silver cage had been buried under the detritus of the 1970s when she’d found it in her own time, in the Room of Hidden Things. 

So it was that she made the appropriate request of the Room of Requirement, making certain the hall was clear before she paced in front of the door, thoughts skittering around the various points of interest she couldn’t very well ignore within, even if they  _ weren’t _ pertinent to the evils of this particular day, which were  _ certainly  _ sufficient.

After magically unearthing and then bodily dragging the spell-resistant cage to the exit, Hermione did three more things:

  1. Grabbed a certain old copy of an advanced potions textbook and stashed it in her beaded bag.
  2. Incinerated an old, unmatched vanishing cabinet, which had been left in the room in a state of disrepair. (She really _did_ need to work out how to get to Narcissa, she knew, or that could end up being hazardous to Draco.)
  3. Glowered for a long while at a certain tiara on an old, dusty marble bust, irritated yet again that there was no way to remove the taint and keep the artifact. Being able to move a Horcrux would be exceptionally helpful, and not just in this instance.



Ultimately, she elected NOT to do anything about the diadem - yet. If at all possible, she wanted to address all the Horcruxes with teams and destroy them as nearly simultaneously as possible in case a remnant of a certain dark lord was sentient enough yet to try and retaliate. 

And  _ that _ would require controlled fiendfyre and/or basilisk fangs. 

_ Bugger _ . She kicked over a pail of ancient, desiccated flobberworms. She’d have to deal with the Chamber, too. 

She wasn’t even going to  _ think _ about the matter of the damned  _ vaults _ she’d read about causing so much trouble later in the 1980s - not at this point, thanks.

In any event, the crown had been here this long, and she wasn’t going to subject herself to carrying it around unnecessarily, thanks.

At length, she managed to exit the Room - transfiguring a sort of dolley out of some old cracked brooms in order to move the cage and covering it in some aged house banners to disguise it. After situating it in Remus’ room (his password was “bandersnatch”), she managed to ward both the room and cage thoroughly against everything from noise to physical and magical assaults before lunchtime. Then, she lined the cage floor with blankets so that Remus could avoid directly touching silver. She’d  _ even  _ made a little floating platform for herself to sit on that Lupin-as-deranged-wolf couldn’t quite reach just below the high, vaulted ceiling, just to set him more at ease about her safety.

When she skipped up to the Staff table for the midday meal, pleased with herself for a morning well-spent, Flitwick nodded to her a little sadly. McGonagall wasn’t there. Remus sat quiet and pale beside a cajoling Sirius, not eating. It would be sunset, alas, before dinner. Sirius, clearly cognizant of this, was at least stopping short of spooning stew to his friend’s lips in his concern, though he was generally comporting himself like a doting mother hen in a way that amused Hermione with its… unexpectedness.

After a few minutes of listening, though, Hermione lost her patience and tried her own way. “Eat, you idiot,” she growled, moving a few seats down the table to plunk herself at Remus’ side. She shoved the stew back at Sirius and cut from the rarest center bits of the roast on the table, knowing those would be the most likely to entice wolfish appetites, and putting them on a fresh plate. As a doubtful-looking Remus picked up his fork, she poured him a full goblet of water and put it in front of him, too. When the lycanthrope still sat still, sallow and sullen, though, she got impatient. In a huff of exasperation, she seized the fork from his hand and cut a bite of meat before holding it up to his mouth. Only at this point did she notice that Sirius and Remus were now both looking up at her curiously, and that Remus’s eyes had gone half-gold around the pupils

With uncharacteristic speed, her friend and sometime professor snapped up the meat she’d offered him, his eyes remaining on hers. 

Hermione held Remus’s eye contact, puzzled but also feeling a warm flush spreading over her cheeks. Sirius, after his gaze darted rapidly between them a few times, stood under the pretense of gallantly pulling out her chair for her then looked from her to the still-raised fork expectantly. “Em, Hermione, could I see you in my office for a minute?”

By the time her eyes had darted to Sirius and then back to Remus again, the latter’s gaze was on the meat on his plate, a dark fringe of lashes covering whatever color his eyes might now be.

Confused, she put down the fork and let Sirius tug her away and through the halls, quiet until the door of the DADA Professor’s study was closed behind them and he was pulling her into his arms with a little shiver. 

She pulled back to meet his gaze, but allowed his arms to stay around her. “Sirius, what  _ was  _ all that just now?” 

Sirius barked a rather softer than usual laugh, pulling her over to a small settee against one wall and sitting next to her. “Em, unless you want to join the Remus Lupin Unrequited Lover Club, which might be less than ideal, you need to know a few things.”

She blinked in surprise. “Come again?”

Sirius sighed, coaxing her to turn her to the side and starting to knead at her perpetually tense shoulders - not sorry to avoid the awkwardness of having this conversation with eye contact. “Em, so there are a couple things.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “First thing is, to Remus right now? You’re a bitch.”

“I beg your…!” Hermione started to surge to her feet, but Sirius caught her and gently but firmly pulled her back down. 

“ _ Not _ like that. Like, a prospective bearer of offspring or even mate. Being a wolf fucks with him in a way being a canine Animagus, say, would not.”

Hermione huffed, crossing her arms. “ _ As if _ you don’t hump everything you fancy.”

Sirius turned her head to meet his eyes briefly before following with a searing, brief kiss and then turning her ‘round again. “I prefer to hump only  _ you _ , your supreme bitchiness, for the nonce, and I will let you know you’ve a last chance to stake your claim on the magnificence that is me before I seriously consider the virtues of another shapely ass - or calf, for that matter.  _ Especially _ now you’ve got that jacket. Did you wake up wearing only that jacket, love?”

She had, and she snorted, unable to help a little laugh as she sidestepped his attempt to get her sidetracked. “If that’s what makes you happy, I can’t stop you. You were saying about Remus and me being a bitch, though?”

She could feel him shaking his head, somehow, through the motion of his fingers as they worked along her shoulder blades. “Remus at his wolfish-est thinks of himself as becoming a split person. It isn’t quite that simple, but it gets him through the month to think of the wolf’s doings as completely severed from his own desires, and that there are major differences isn’t wrong. Anyway. The very _practical_ , survival-and-pleasure minded person who is the wolf wants to find the choicest of mates and fuck himself silly, make puppies, eat raw meat, chase things, and surround himself with pack.”

“I… oh,” Hermione said, letting herself lean into his hands. 

“Yes, well,” Sirius continued, working down to the mess that was her lower back with a little tutting sound. “This is more or less antithetical to the restrained, self-doubting, erudite,  _ human  _ Remus, who despite being desperately lonely wants to be as solitary as possible in order to protect others, and who concerns himself with understanding both people and anything else that happens to catch his interest in as abstracted a way as possible.”

Hermione shrugged. “That’s… not impossible to relate to.”

Sirius hissed in disapproval, giving her shoulders a soft shake to make her relax them again. “Don’t do that to yourself. This is yet another reason why we have to shag more. I can help with joining up your mind and body properly. They don’t have any excuse to be so at odds with each other as you keep them. Shall I take you now, on the desk perhaps?”

She shook her head, feeling her cheeks redden. “You really can find a way to make  _ anything _ come back to that, can’t you?”

She could also feel him nodding. “And I will keep you coming… back… as long as I can, given my druthers, Hermione. I urge you to reconsider whatever it is that compels you to keep me at arm’s length. Well.  _ Some  _ of the time.”

Hermione busied herself rapidly pushing thoughts and feelings away. “Could we  _ please  _ talk about Remus right now?” she said, whining a bit over the please. “As it’s the full moon tonight?”

Behind her, Sirius sighed. “Look, there’s no ideal way to say this, so I regret to inform you that,  _ well,  _ you’re  _ in season _ at present. And you smell positively  _ luscious. _ ”

She felt herself go positively scarlet, and started to sputter. 

Before she could find words, he went on, his voice traipsing lightly over landmines as he went. “I know you have an IUD, so actual puppies may not be a concern, but any gent with a preternatural olfactory sense and an attraction to the sacred feminine would want you badly right now. Still, as I am a good dog, rather than persuading you to let me mount you here and now as  _ every sinew of my body _ is demanding I  _ ought _ , I’m telling you that  _ Remus  _ is unable to be indifferent to how you smell at present. As such, you need to know that procuring his food for him, physically feeding him, and playing dominance games through eye contact are also things that will make him want to get right on with fucking himself silly - with  _ you _ .” 

Hermione dimly registered that her hands were trembling in her lap. “Why the  _ fuck _ am I a bloody  _ sex kitten-” _

“-ahem, sex  _ bitch-” _

“-sex _ kitten,” _ she insisted, “in this time? This is  _ not _ how I’m accustomed to my life going. Men - and women, for that matter - have long proven quite indifferent to me under a variety of circumstances.”

Sirius’s hands hit a slight hitch before they recovered and resumed rubbing. “Weeeeell… I suspect, Hermione, that you must have been a bit oblivious, as clever girls who never think they’re doing well enough can sometimes be, or that men - and women, for that matter - have gone rather downhill over time. Or both.”

Hermione sat silently, letting him stretch her neck toward one shoulder, then the other, as she thought. “This is mad,” she said, finally.

He chuckled. “Want to know just how mad?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder, brow furrowed, and nodded. 

He turned her head back to face front and stroked his long, strong, slightly rough fingertips from the base of her skull down her neck, then again. “I figure you ought to know eventually anyway, given how embroiled with us you already are now. Remus told me you yelled at him for having alienated his friends. What you may  _ not  _ know is that, the last time any of us was with him when he transformed, it was just me. James was with a very new Harry and a recovering Lily, and  _ Peter _ , I now suspect, was off doing nefarious Death Eater things.” He paused to sigh, his hands trying to coax her shoulders from their default way of lodging up around her ears - their default position as much as stressed was her default state. “That night, some of the same animalistic behaviors that often happen among canines came up - but instead of just mounting poor Padfoot as a dominance display, or vice versa, the wolf…” He faltered a moment. “Look, Remus held my neck between his enormous wolfy teeth and he mounted me, penetration, knot, and all. Then I did it to him. Then he did it to me, again.”

Hermione blinked as Sirius’s hands slid down her back, coming to rest on her hips. “We woke up human, still all entangled like that. Before I realized how mortified he was, I twisted around and tried to kiss him. And he…  _ hit  _ me.”

Hermione had stayed facing the other way, but now she tried to turn around, wanting to comfort him after hearing his voice break over those last words - but he held her still by her hips, so she reluctantly continued to gaze, wide-eyed, at the fire. 

She had to wait a while before he continued, but finally, he did. “Look, Hermione, you’re not entirely off the mark when you say I like humping everything. I haven’t had as many opportunities, and haven’t had _any_ other really … _emotionally charged_ ones… with men. Hell, there’ve only been a couple with women that fit that bill. So here’s my dashing best friend, or one of them, and it just _happened_ , spontaneous if a bit moon-mad, and I thought… well, it could be fucking _destiny,_ could be _true bloody love_. But... he broke my jaw, and then he started ranting at me about what it would do to him if he were even more of a freak than he was already, about how his father had beaten him when he’d gotten too close to other boys as a child - when, because of the in-season-sensing-thing around girls and old-fashioned sexism to boot, boys had been the _only_ kinds of friends he’d been allowed. After that, he said, his folks didn’t let him have _any_ contact with other children or _anyone_ else outside their family of three, _at all_ , until Hogwarts. They even pulled him out of the end of primary school. He went on about how he was already such a tremendous disappointment, he couldn’t be even more of one, and how could I. Then, he Disapparated.”

When Sirius had told her Remus had hit him, Hermione had grim guesses as to what might have followed, but it still hurt to hear it _. _ When he finished, she at least leaned back into his chest, pressing her warmth into him, and he sighed and dropped his chin onto her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist. “ _ Nothing _ was the same after that. Remus started going away for long periods of time without telling us how to contact him, or where he was going, or when he’d be back. He’s only told me since James and Lily died - so, since you showed up - that Dumbledore sent him to play ambassador with wolf packs, but that sort of information was need to know in the Order, just in case of capture, and I guess…  _ somehow  _ it was determined that we didn’t need to know. It wouldn’t have been like that, before we fucked. Remus, when we saw him, was mostly distant -  _ whenever  _ he was around, and  _ especially  _ around me. I tried one more time to talk to him about it - things were more okay that evening, the moon was new and we’d all had our share of firewhiskey - but because I  _ dared  _ to bring it up to try to find some resolution, we got into a  _ huge  _ fight, grappling and shoving each other into walls in Diagon Alley right outside the Leaky, and James had to break it up. Lily was sobbing, holding a very very tiny Harry on the sidelines. And Remus just… Disapparated, again, without a word.” 

He didn’t resist when she turned around now, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling his tear-streaked face into her shoulder. “Sirius, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She pulled back a little, bringing her face to his to kiss away his most recent tears. 

Sirius shrugged. “It makes the reason why Remus  _ alienated _ us more sympathetic, I hope. I have a long habit of disregarding or, better still, running headlong into things my parents thought were anathema to everything I ought to be. Remus tried  _ so  _ hard not to disappoint his that he  _ broke _ himself. He’s also… well, working class and a halfblood. Among the Sacred Twenty-Eight, things like heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and several other shades of identity and attraction fluctuate with trends and how bored one is, not to mention what’s on the social calendar, so long as one marries appropriately, produces legitimate heirs, and is discreet. There are semi-regular big fancy sex parties on ritualistic pretexts, or so I hear - I got my first invitation rescinded because I’d moved in with the Potters before I was of age.” He shook his head. “I admit I hadn’t thought about the different divides, about my relative position of privilege in that my class is allowed,” he threw up his hands, searching for words, “secrets and peccadillos and lovers. I was incautious and should have spoken before I acted, but still, it seemed to me then that the Thestral had left the forest anyhow, and it’s done now.”

Hermione pulled her knees under her to reach up and kiss him on the forehead, tucking his head beneath her chin for a change. “I’m so sorry, Sirius. For what it’s worth, with respect to homophobia… it’s not universally accepted, but by my time, it does start to get better, and I think that it will continue to. That’s one thing that Muggles are leading the charge on. Same-sex marriages are legal, even, in one US State, and they may become so, soon, in the Netherlands. It’s starting to be spoken about in the ICW as well.”

Sirius inhaled deeply, his face sinking slightly against her chest. “Vixen, with my face this close to you, right now? The  _ last  _ thing I want to do is be with a bloke, much less marry one. I’m glad to hear it - I know it will help people - but I need to either undress you or throw you out sometime in the next thirty seconds.”

Hermione yelped slightly and scrambled out of what Sirius was quickly making an increasingly compromising position in his arms. To his credit, he just barked out a laugh, his eyes dry now. “Better for Remus that way, too. I’m sure he knows, but it would aggrieve the wolf to smell me on you during your... vigil.” 

When Hermione turned to say goodbye at the door, straightening her new cobalt blue robes, he spoke first. “Listen - you’re  _ certain  _ you’ll be safe, right? Tonight?”

Hermione nodded. “I’m certain, Sirius. Don’t worry. I’ve done it before.”

He shook his head. “ _ You  _ didn’t brew the potion entirely-”

“-Sirius, Severus  _ would not  _ sabotage this!-”

“-and I know you’ve warded the sound in,  _ everything _ in, and that you’re a formidable witch - but keep your wand and wits about you. I will be awake. You send a Patronus to me if you need to and I will be there in an instant, do you understand?”

She shook her head, but said, “Yes, Sirius. It won’t be necessary, though.”

He furrowed his brow a minute. “Alright. Then…” He ran a hand through his hair, looking frustrated. “Just... take care of him, then, if you’re safe. Whatever you need to do, Hermione. Whatever you… feel is best. He has no compassion for himself, he’s hurting  _ badly _ , and as the man said, the moon is a harsh mistress.”

❧

Around 3:30 PM, Hermione knocked on Remus’s door. He opened it wide, not bothering to hide that he knew it was her before he saw her, and stood aside for her to enter. He was barefoot and wearing muggle sweats. which he saw her taking in. 

He shrugged. “Muggle things. Stretchy, cheap. Hurts less to transform in.”

She shook her head, plopping down in an arm chair very similar to one of the ones in her own study and avoiding looking toward the bedroom, where the cage was visible through the door. “I get it. I’m Muggleborn.” She paused as he nodded in recognition - she remembered his mother was a Muggle, too. “I’m... just more accustomed to you wearing a loose robe or just wrapping yourself in a sheet, which seem even less problematic, for this. I could just put a sheet over the cage, for that matter - I know having anything on your skin hurts.”

He considered her curiously. “And at that time, when that happened, were other people there?”

She nodded quickly, “Oh, yes, usually your… em…” She flushed, uncertain of how much to say - spoiling Voldemort’s little playdates was one thing, but she didn’t want to ruin a future romance. “Em, your significant other was there, too.”

He blinked. “Me? I had a... significant other?”

She nodded, confused. “As one does, yeah.”

He shook his head. “ _ One _ may, but  _ I _ do not, as a rule.”

She made a bit of a sour face. “Yes, well, that’s rather silly of you, but it seems your hangups about relationships are even worse now than they are in the future, so…” She threw her hands up in frustration. “You’re going to change a touch after 4 this evening, when the sun goes down - is now the time to talk to you about the life-affirming and healthful qualities of love, sex, and companionship?”

He snorted, folding his arms and starting to pace. “Been spending too much time with Sirius, you have.”

She shrugged. “You could do a hell of a lot worse than to do the same, Remus.”

He stopped, glowering at her. “So he told you, did he?”

She shrugged and nodded. “There’s absolutely no shame in it as far as I’m concerned, and it helped me understand where things went awry better. Do you wish he hadn’t?”

Remus, who had never before been this grouchy or this talkative in her presence … at least in this time… shook his head. “No. It’s probably best you know to be on your guard around me, I suppose. Still, I’d hoped… well, to borrow some novels, have someone who is  _ not _ Severus, thanks, to putter around in the Library with.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “We can do those things, Remus. Nothing about you is repellent to me. Quite the contrary, thinking of you two together is...” she shivered a little, picturing it with slightly unfocused eyes and a wan smile.

He just looked confused as he sat down in the other armchair, looking at her.  _ “Why?” _

She pursed her lips, the fantasy fracturing as she looked at him. “You’re so determined that you’re repulsive and that anyone with the facts should see it, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. She groaned and kicked his shin, eliciting a little yelp of surprise as he tucked his legs back. “You’re an idiot, Professor.”

“Remus!” he cried, sounding more wounded by her formality than his bruised leg even as he rubbed at it.

“Oh,  _ whatever _ .” She sighed, looking at the tousled blond in the heather gray sweatsuit with his big green eyes and beautiful, delicate features. “You. You’re going to owe me a favor after this. Not unlike your good friend Severus, I might add.”

Remus sat back, furrowing his brow. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Hermione, I just think this is very risky, is all, and -”

Hermione shook her head until he trailed off. “ _ Not _ for doing any of this.  _ This  _ is basic human decency. You see someone get a scrape when you’ve a bandage in your hand, doing the right thing isn’t a question. I would do this for  _ Wormtail _ , though I’d like it a lot less. It has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about you. Listening to you go on, however, is rather difficult, since I know you to be brilliant, intellectual, socially adroit, caring, gentle, and fucking  _ lickable _ , you’re so gorgeous. Despite it all, though, here you are going on about yourself as though you’re a leper pariah who is both on fire and spewing gouts of acid in all directions. Oh,” she added as an afterthought. “And ugly, too.”

He snorted indecorously. “Right, whereas I’m … lickable?”

She glared at him. “Catnip. Or possibly a chocolate truffle.” She considered a moment. “Truffles come in mint chocolate, and catnip is a sort of mint, so maybe that.”

She shivered a little as flecks of yellow bled into his eyes. “And so..?” he murmured.

She tried to look away but it was difficult. “It … well, I suppose it means you make people want to play with you to the edge of madness and eat you all up?”

More yellow and a slow, leering grin. It just looked  _ wrong _ on her gentle professor’s (angelic, too-young) face. 

So, impulsively, she reached out and bopped him on the nose, saying “Stop that.”

He blinked, looking down for a moment, before his eyes came back up, green and horrified. “I’m… so sorry, that was… em…”

She rolled her eyes. “Undress, you idiot. I promise not to play with you  _ or _ eat you all up, but I  _ do  _ wish you’d work on having a less precipitous drop-off between tear-its-clothes-off-and-mount-it and shy-virginal-scholar, because seeing you act like this is giving me sympathy for Sirius’s complaints about  _ me _ . And it’s in my interest that he remain wrong.”

Remus pulled a wry face, starting to tug his sweatshirt off. “Maybe you, oh many-faceted enchantress, could teach me to better embody both virgin and whore.”

Hermione shrugged, making a show of nonchalantly examining her fingernails. “I could, but I’d have to charge.”

Remus now had one eye yellow and the other green, and was topless and blinking in consternation. Hermione’s eyes widened. “Huh. Never seen  _ that  _ before. Suspect it’s still not the goal, but nice effort.” She whacked him on the knee gently with the back of her hand. “Pants off and into the cage with you since you insist on it, you untrusting git - the sun’s about to set.”

❧

Hermione cringed, hugging her knees, as she heard the agonizing screams, then yelps, then howls of his transformation. 

She could not believe how she just emotionally manhandled a werewolf - and a friend, at that - and a  _ fanciable  _ one, at  _ that  _ \- immediately before he got sucked unwillingly into transformation on his grumpiest day of the month. Sirius had asked her to take  _ good _ care of him. 

_ Well,  _ she thought,  _ even odds I’m dead or dying anyway, mustn’t forget - so maybe this mouthy new Hermione is just part of doing and saying everything I didn’t get to over the years and no one gets hurt in the bargain.  _

Then, even as she shuddered in sympathy and shame at the last two little whimpers of the wolf she’d just given inappropriate degrees of hell, she had to admit that it had felt good to let him have it.

❧

Hermione waited another five minutes or so before she entered the bedroom. A furry ball of canine was curled up in the cage, shivering and painting, looking wet and spent from a long hard run. His sweats were, as it turned out, folded neatly on the foot of his made bed - so at least he’d spared himself some pain.

He also wasn’t ravening or attacking himself.

“Remus?” she asked, tentatively, quietly.

He raised his muzzle from where it was curled against his side, turning his head toward her. 

She smiled, suddenly very tired. This was the wolf she liked - the one who’d taken his potion and didn’t retain structural vestiges of human form that distorted a lupine body into some monstrous in-between thing. As it was, he looked very much like a typical, large gray wolf - fur long and near-black at the tips, silvery underneath. Pointed ears up and perceptive. Intelligent, slightly human-looking eyes, large of pupil and yellow flecked with green, the whites a little more visible than they’d be in a real wolf. And at the end of his tail, the fur was a little long, creating a sort of tuft - not as distinct from the rest of the tail, which was still long-furred, as a lion’s might be, but still not typical of wolves.

“I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I just came from talking to Sirius, who gave  _ me  _ rather an intense quantity of information,  _ much  _ of which was about you, and it was making me irritable. And I… I’m not accustomed to you…” She gestured at all of him. “Paying the sort of attention to me that your wolfish persona was?  _ Or  _ being quite this hard on yourself? For  _ one  _ thing, you’re not at  _ all  _ homophobic in the future - Seamus even told me how supportive you were and how you listened when he was miserably on the outs with Dean.”

Remus-as-wolf’s incredulous sound adorably resembled a sneeze.

Hermione shrugged. “Anyway. Do you understand what the potion does now, and agree it’s working? Are you safe to be let out?”

Remus canted his head thoughtfully, then nodded. 

Hermione undid the latch, yawning as the level of her current exhaustion swelled over her. “Good.”

Remus sat on his haunches, up to her ribcage in height, and looked a bit put out by how casually she was taking all this. 

She just shrugged. “Remus, I realize this is a revelatory experience for you, and fully endorse your running about chasing your tail, catching mice, or what have you - I’ll even take you out on a lead and pretend you’re a dog if you need to see the stars while in control of your wolf’s eyes for the very first time. We could go to Potterswood - there shouldn’t be any other werewolves able to get in, so it’d be safer than the forest. Despite all such willingness, though, I’m  _ tired _ , and you  _ know  _ I come by that honestly.”

Remus shook out his fur, starting from his shoulders and moving through his tail, and then, with a motion that resembled a shrug, leapt up on the bed and pulled the covers down a bit, then looked at her again.

She blinked at him skeptically. “You’re that convinced,  _ that  _ fast, that you’re so incredibly harmless than I should just go to sleep in your bed while you’re transformed, eh?”

The wolf nodded solemnly.

Hermione sighed. “Next time, perhaps you could try believing me earlier, so that I’ll have the wherewithal to bring pajamas before the wards slam shut.”

The wolf belly-crawled forward a bit and nosed the sweats his human self had just been wearing toward her. She looked at them, and then at him. “Oh… well, alright, you guard  _ me _ , then. I’ll change in the loo, be back soon.”

❧

###  NOVEMBER 12, 1981

When Hermione started to blink awake, bright sunlight streaming in through the open-curtained bed and windows, the world was entirely too golden and warm for it to even occur to her to think of where, let alone  _ when _ , she was. 

She yawned expansively, blinked her eyes closed again, reveling in the warm sun on her skin. 

Hmmm. But she was otherwise warm, too. Lovely. Snuggle into the warmth, Hermione. Warm, warm, warm. Solid, slightly yielding. Delicious-smelling. Mmmph. Good, good morning. 

Muzzily, still more than half asleep, she let her body chase the warm, shucking off her too-large shirt to let the sun shine on her skin and rolling toward sunbeams and nice-smelling things.

So warm. She snuggled down, feeling peculiarly safe as she yawned again. Safe to sleep, safe to let drift her anxieties and just be - comfortable, restful, here, now.

It felt as if the very world was breathing with her.

And it felt entirely in-keeping with the Magical Realism of the cusp of sleep and waking when two arms looped around her, stroking her bare, sun-kissed back and pulling her close. She sank into the warm embrace of this lovely morning, a smile spreading over her sleepy lips as she pressed a kiss to whatever the warmth was.

The stuff of the universe was fluid and loving and moving around her, and she slept suspended in a hot sunbeam like some pagan goddess sent to be Apollo’s bride. 

And then, she heard a wanton little gasp beneath her, and, confused, started to blink open her eyes.

To find herself straddling an unearthly beautiful man, who, similarly half asleep, had his hands down the bottom of her - his? - sweatpants and kneading, one engulfing each of her cheeks, and was grinding up into her with a startling erection and a beatific smile on his still sleeping face, every fleck of hair on him glowing white as a bulb filament in the sun.

For a moment she was still so asleep that this seemed like the aforementioned loving universe giving her a pleasant, lovely surprise. He  _ looked  _ more like Apollo than Remus Lupin as she knew him, glowing and smiling thus. 

When he ground up against her again, she bit back a moan, her heart starting to race as a cloud drifted over the sun. She knew him for himself then, and started to go rigid with panic.

It was her stillness that woke him. But not all at once.

Still half asleep, he tsked and rolled over onto her, pressing down, pulling her up against him insistently before his eyes blinked open.

And he, too, froze, his sweat-dewed chest plastered to hers, his fingers dug deep into the cleavage of her ass, his hard cock pushing the cloth between them into the wetness of her as she both cringed and exalted. 

Their eyes met, jumping between wide panic and half-lidded lust, as mutual understanding dawned.

Hermione scrambled out from beneath him the second his grip on her slackened, scurrying over to her own neat pile of clothes and pulling her own jumper on, not bothering with underthings before donning her skirt and pulling the sweats off from under it. She tossed them onto the bed without looking back before stuffing her underwear into a pocket and shoving her feet into shoes. 

“Hermione…” he said, his voice uncharacteristically deep.

She shook her head. “It was an accident. I’m very sorry - especially after what happened with Sirius, I’m sorry.”

He was silent for a moment as she rummaged under an old ottoman to find her little bottomless bag.

“Come back to me.”

He said it very softly, though his voice held an unfamiliar note of command, and it shivered through her just as her hand closed on the familiarly cool, slippery beaded surface of her bag. She reared up on her knees, forgetting not to look at him in her confusion. 

The sun was cleared again. Uncovered across the rumpled white sheets lay his long, lean-muscled body, unmistakably aroused and gilded by a slanting ray of light. He was stretched out unapologetically on his side, his full lips slightly parted, his eyes gone yellow-white, his hair - all over his body - glittering as if lit from within.

It was like the beckoning of some mythical siren or a long-forgotten god. It didn’t seem Remus at all - which both entranced and repelled her. 

“Em… I have to… goodbye!”

And she ran out the door, then down the hall, through the office, and on, not stopping until she was outside the gate - and able to Apparate away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine some of you might have comments, after that. I'm eager to read them if you do.


	27. Laid to Rest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:
> 
> General out of the frying pan, into the fire-ness  
> Death and mourning  
> Past domestic violence/child abuse against a major character  
> Past alcoholism  
> rough sex  
> consent that is both explicit and dubious  
> ways NOT to do BDSM or breathplay by someone who learned under abusive circumstances  
> and also, yeah, BDSM and breathplay

###  SPINNER’S END, COKEWORTH

Severus Snape blinked awake at the sound of knocking, then silently rose and spelled himself dressed, deliberately  _ not  _ in his robes as a fuck-you to blood supremacy. Pushing down his rising gorge at the unexpected intrusion when he’d expected some time free of them, and schooling his face to bored neutrality, he swung open his door.

❧

Hermione was startled almost entirely out of her anxiety over the incident with Remus at the sight inside the door. Severus’ eyes flickered and his shoulders relaxed some as he saw it was her, but he was standing there, same old haughtily aloof face, in a pair of worn black jeans and a black Guess t-shirt, which was newer - had to be, she supposed, as she’d learned just yesterday the company was only formed this year. It looked … rather well on him, really.

He sighed as her eyes finally ended up lingering on his well-worn Doc Martens, intoning a flat but impatient “Won’t you come in?”

She blinked up, then nodded, brushing past him in the doorway. 

❧

_ Teaching her Occlumency, for all it’s going well, is going to be difficult to conclude satisfactorily.  _ As Severus puttered about the dingy kitchen, filling the teapot and setting some cups and saucers to scrub before scavenging about for a tray, he felt a cavalcade of emotions and thoughts pinging off Granger as if she were one of those paintings - the ones where you squirted drops of paint onto a spinning piece of paper - still in progress. Drips of confusion, curiosity, a hint of … my goodness, was that randiness?... and what felt like a habitual poke or two at proofs to baroque arithmantic theorems spattered him and the walls. He knew she could put the walls up much better, now, but also that it would likely never be reflexive. A zing of guilty carnal fantasy, its subject inspecific, spun off her and winged him causing him to pause a moment in his search for the tea until the apparent impact could fade where only the counter could see it. 

If she could get the walls up well when someone was intruding, he supposed, now aware of her childlike fascination with a doxy peering at her curiously from his mother’s yellowed gingham curtains, that would be enough. It would be rather a shame to lose these reminders of her mind, irrepressibly ricocheting off her around those she… huh. Yes. Around those she  _ trusted. _

❧

At length, Severus sat with her at the old formica table, distracting her from the unusually calm doxy who was looking at her from its home in the kitchen curtains. He’d brought a tray with an old yellow teapot, some milk and sugar cubes, and two mismatched teacups. He placed the unchipped wedgewood in front of her and took the fiestaware for himself, then set to pouring.

“Thanks,” she said, dashing milk and sugar in without lifting hand or wand, and watching the cup spin to mix them together before picking her cup up to sip. 

His dark gaze flitted from the cup to her eyes as it met her lips. “Of course. What brings you here this morning? You seem… agitated.”

She shook her head, slumping forward and resting her weight on elbows propped on the table. 

❧

A tinge of a smile got past him. He loved watching her sit trusting at this table. When his mother had broken down here, thinking she was safe, exhausted from cleaning and cooking food his father had screamed was inedible and thrown across the room, she’d let her weight rest on her elbows, once. 

His father had backhanded her and sent her flying to the floor, spittle flying as he screamed at her for being an unmannered cow. 

He had had to wait a quarter hour to be sure the old man wouldn’t return on some pretext before he’d helped her up again. He’d been 9. She’d sobbed about how she’d provoked him, how his father was really such a good man, so generous to them both.

It would never happen in this house - now his house - ever again. It would never happen  _ anywhere _ again. Not because of  _ him. _

❧

Hermione shook her head. “Yes, I am. Sorry for slouching all over your table, and thanks for the tea. I was… surprised you weren’t in your quarters or in class this morning. Is everything alright with you?”

Severus stirred his tea absentmindedly, though he’d added nothing to it. “My father passed away last night. I was called to my mother’s side to help her. She was very upset. He stumbled on the stairs on his way home from the pub and fell, it seems.”

Hermione felt her eyes widening in horror. Severus, however, seemed unaffected. 

“I… Severus, I’m… well…” She sat straighter, seeming to come to some sort of resolution. “I’m  _ not _ sorry, actually. I’m  _ glad  _ the abusive old bastard is dead. But how can I help you and your mother? Have you made arrangements yet?”

She blinked as his eyes came up to hers full of unconcealed surprise and, perhaps,  _ gratitude. _

❧

He found himself gaping at her, lost for words.  _ Sweet Salazar, her unshieldedness is catching _ , he chided himself, trying to pull himself back together, pulling his eyes from her and trying to focus them on the spiraling little whirlpool in his teacup. 

❧

A minute later, he’d gathered himself again, and looked up at her with only a little curiosity evident on his face. His voice was soft when he asked. “How did you know?”

She shook her head, thinking of the memories Harry had stumbled upon, and of the once he’d left at his death. She blinked back tears forming in her eyes in frustration and shook her head. “You don’t want to know. And I only know a little. But…” She sighed. “Well. What’s next?”

He shrugged. “I’m going to try to get the entire thing done with today.”

She blinked. “Today?”

He nodded tightly. “No religious ceremony. He never went to church. The undertakers thought it should be possible. The service will be at the funeral home at 3, and,” he sneered, “Mum put a word in down the pub, so anyone he knew should get word.” 

Hermione thought a moment, looking up at the clock. “Well, it’s ten now - you must have been out late.”

Severus nodded slowly. “Yes. Got in around 4.”

❧

She winced, sympathy pouring off her as she reached over to brush a lock of hair from his eyes. He blinked but forced himself not to pull away. He… he liked her caring, he found. 

_ And why shouldn’t I? _ , he thought.  _ Is it even unsafe, anymore? Hasn’t it been long enough since… since I’ve been cared for? Does it not feel good? Is she not worthy of my regard and more, besides? _

❧

She felt him tense a bit as she pushed a greasy lock out of his face and tucked it behind his ear, but he didn’t push her off as she half expected him to, and she gave him a wan smile. “Can I help you, today? Stay with you? It seems like something awful to have to do alone, with no one you can talk to about how you  _ really _ feel about it all.”

His gaze was searching. “Would you, even if I don’t know that I wish to speak of it?”

She smiled simply. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”

She had a thought, looking at him there, darting glanced between her and his tea as if uncertain of what to do with a friend’s affection.  _ Of  _ course _ he’s uncertain of what to do with a friend’s affection _ , she chided herself, and then, shaking her head, surged up to her feet and grabbed his hand, tugging him up. 

“C’mon then, Severus. You’re going to do me that favor so you can sublimate some of your ill-concealed tumult into being almighty brassed off at me.” 

❧

Severus stood under the inconsistent pressure of the hot shower, reading the tiny print of the ingredients she’d written on the bottle.  _ Jojoba, cypress, tea tree, rosemary, lemon, basil, peach kernel, walnut.  _ He supposed it could make sense to use oil to strip oils. And some of these were astringent.

He tensed, holding very still behind the flimsy white plastic curtain, as he heard the bathroom door open and Hermione walked in in a cloud of cooler, dry air before she closed the door behind her again. He heard a familiar creak as she sat down on the closed lid of the toilet seat. 

“I don’t smell suds yet, Severus. Get lathering. You owe me the favor.”

He could not  _ believe _ she had the audacity to… to… but at the same time, he wanted to pull her into the shower with him and pin her to the wall under him for having done it, rip off all her clothes and take her right there.

He blinked.  _ That _ was new and interesting.

❧

She looked around at the aging yellow tiles, the mildew stains that no amount of scrubbing could dispel after they’d set long enough. The towels were clean but fraying at the edges, and she could hear from here that the water pressure was a bit of an unpredictable ride. 

But damned if he was going to slither out of this. 

“Severus. Don’t make me wash you.” she taunted, her hands resting on her hips. 

“I’ve only ever heard of melaleuca oil being used for fin rot in merrows.”

She shook her head, looking up at the water-stained ceiling. “Bubble up, potions  _ master _ , the student surpasses the teacher in some things.”

His eyes peered around the edge of the white plastic curtain at her. “You are remarkably unmannered, Gran-”

“- _ Hermione.” _ she corrected, her eyes drifting over his bare, pale shoulder, exposed by his perpetual need to glower.

He sighed. “ _ Hermione.”  _ His eyes flicked over her quickly - but she caught it. “Do not tell me you would actually  _ do  _ that.”

She treated him to a feral grin, leaning forward threateningly. “Try me.”

❧

Severus ducked back behind the curtain, shuddering as his body sprang awake. Whatever  _ that  _ face was… 

He glanced at his throbbing erection in frustration, then, ceasing to dissect her ingredient list, poured some of her concoction on her hands and re-wet his hair before starting to rub it in. It smelled strongly but not unpleasantly herbal. 

And, as it reached his scalp, it felt cool, soothing. His hair started to feel lighter under the lather. It felt nice, he had to grudgingly admit, glaring at the various different bottles of other potions and products he’d attempted when feeling insecure in the past, all lined up along the tub’s edge in their irritating plentitude.

Once he’d gotten the lather in, though, he rinsed his hands to address the more urgent irritant.

“Can you smell the lather to your satisfaction now,  _ Hermione _ ?” he said as he grasped his cock firmly in one hand and started to stroke rapidly over the aching hardness while his other hand braced on the built-in ledge for soap.

❧

She sniffed and nodded to herself in satisfaction, pleased. “See that, I knew you could be taught.”

She heard his snarl from within the shower and laughed, her work here done, and exited to go get herself another cup of tea.

❧

The snarl had been cathartic, but when he came several minutes later, painting the inside of the curtain white-on-white, he was silent, his mouth open, his eyes closed. 

He wondered what it would be like, snarling then. Yelling out. Making  _ any _ sort of sound. To the best of his recollection, he’d never dared.

_ I bet  _ she  _ does _ , he thought darkly.  _ I bet she broadcasts her pleasure with every ounce of her being. I bet it embeds in the walls all around and changes the color of the wallpaper. I bet she makes everything for miles  _ wet _ , when she comes. I bet it drowns. _

He groaned in frustration as he grew hard again at the irrepressible chain of thoughts, flopping down into the tub under the shower’s spray to attend to himself again. Unresolved tension wouldn’t do him any favors this afternoon.

❧

She sat at the table, feeling a little smug despite what she knew should be somber circumstances, when she heard him swear quietly in his bedroom. 

She made it through a cup and a half of tea before he stepped out, looking…  _ well, well, well,  _ she thought. 

Severus was wearing the well-fitting black muggle suit she’d gotten him, black tie, and dove gray french-cuffed shirt. The cufflinks were black onyx, and would just look like odd little scarabs of the sort that were fashionable-ish to Muggles right now, but were in fact carved with runes of protection and fortitude she’d engraved herself. There were robes, too, and wingtip black chelsea boots he could wear with either - similar to the impeccably fastidious, almost Victorian-seeming clothing she’d remembered him wearing later in life but which he hadn’t seemed to have found yet. She knew he’d been bothered all his childhood by looking scruffy, having ill-fitting and mismatched clothes. But he hadn’t yet decided to rectify that, so she figured a little jump start might give him a bit more confidence. 

And then there was his hair - which he had  _ never _ gotten to the bottom of in her timeline. 

That solution had been two-fold. Sirius had admitted, deep in his cups, that he and James had  _ cursed _ “the slimy git” never to grow out of the adolescent shortcoming of greasiness. She’d nearly thrown him out a window, but he just giggled, apologized, diffused her temper with innuendo, and finally told her the counterspell. It had been a small matter to make it go off when he opened the shampoo bottle, and distracted as he’d been by her barging in on his toilet, he hadn’t noticed it happening, thereby forestalling any extended blood feud bullshit. 

Also, he just needed a decent shampoo and a lot of what was made in this era was damaging crap. She’d mixed her own and her family’s in the future, having learned the fundamentals from Lavender and Parvati. It wasn’t hard to figure out a formula for him. 

Now, though, after she cast a small drying spell and sent it spinning his way, his long hair shone, thick and straight to his shoulders, where some bits curled a little at the ends. Not greasy in the slightest. Nor would it be again.

He looked  _ quite _ in the exceeds expectations range, and she was pleased with a good day’s meddling.

“Spear-nosed bat my ass,” she murmured, sipping her tea as she looked him over in satisfaction.

❧

He shot his cuffs and wished she’d stop saying flirtatious things to him as he straightened the cufflinks, realizing what she’d engraved on them as he did so. He managed to restrict his reaction to a raised brow, though, after his painstaking work to get other parts to stay down.

_ The hair thing is really remarkable _ , he thought, combing a hand through it without allowing himself to show too much appreciation. 

Hermione, it seemed, still carried life with her. While he’d showered and dressed, she’d changed. The rather fetching red leather affair she’d walked in with had been charmed full black, and it hung open over a knee-length black dress that flared from the waist and was tightly fitted from there up to the swells of her breasts, then strapped broadly over her shoulders. She wore high black boots with narrow high heels on her feet, over black stockings. Her hair was pinned into a demure french twist and she wore no makeup. The effect was comely, but not too much so for a funeral. 

She stood up, nodding, as she saw he’d properly assembled himself. “You look good. Let’s go help your mother.”

### A WEST COUNTRY VILLAGE, UK

❧

Severus seemed uncharacteristically on edge as he’d taken her through the Floo. They emerged in a room almost as large as the hall at Potterswood, but … emplier. There was a small vase with some wilting daisies on a black entry table, but otherwise, there was little furniture in the large, gray and white room, its marble floors shining in the early afternoon light. 

This was the house, she remembered, that he was given to better befit an esteemed member of the Death Eaters. She wondered how they’d come by it - surely nothing too nefarious, as Hogwarts faculty were subject to annual background checks, but… well. No use throwing petrol on a difficult afternoon by poking that hornet’s nest, she knew. 

There were two stairs headed up from here, apparently to two different wings. One had some men’s coats thrown over the banister, and the other had a worn but clean gray runner going up the stairs. Severus stepped to the bottom of this one. “Mum?” He glanced back at her, then up the stairs again. “I’ve brought a friend. Are you alright? We’re here to help you get read and drive over to the funeral together.”

After a moment, a sniffling woman with pale skin and deep ebon hair came to the top of the stairs, wearing a lavender dressing gown. Everything about how she carried herself seemed designed to diminish her - her posture was miserable, and she seemed folded into herself, in a permanent sort of preparedness to cringe. Her face was tear-stained and she held a damp but not filthy white kerchief in her left hand. As she looked up from it to her son, Hermione took a step back in shock.

❧

Severus was distracted a moment from his mother’s bedraggled misery when a frisson of surprise pinged off Hermione. She’d taken a step back and was examining the woman she’d not yet properly met closely, curiously. Severus turned to her and mouthed,  _ what? _

Hermione shook her head slightly and plastered a polite smile on her face. “Madame P... Em… Snape, it’s so lovely to meet you. Your son just adores you, you know - I’ve heard so much about you! You look lovely for someone so very sad - I’m so terribly sorry for your loss.”

Eileen Snape blinked between Hermione and Severus, a bit of tentative hope zinging around her.  _ Oh, shit _ , he thought.

_ Well, she wanted to support me, and I  _ did _ do her a favor. _ He smiled tightly, stepping up beside Hermione and taking her arm. “Mother, please meet Miss Hermione Granger, my girlfriend.”

❧

Hermione blinked, almost missing her step forward on her still-new boots, but steadied herself rapidly as she saw the dawning joy on the sad woman’s face. She did, however, squeeze Severus’s hand in a way that promised there would be a Conversation Later, capital C and capital L clearly conveyed.

Eileen, meanwhile, drifted halfway down the stairs. “I… my goodness. I’m so pleased to meet you, Miss Granger. May I call you Hermione? I’m Eileen.”

❧

Severus drifted to the kitchen as Hermione took charge of his mother, who was already standing up straighter than he was accustomed to. He was pathetically grateful, a feeling he did not cherish easily, that Hermione had not let his pretense blow up in his face. 

As he cleaned the dishes - easier for him, as his mother had hidden her wand away at his father’s behest decades ago - he heard bits of conversation and even a little laughter drift down from the upstairs. Above, closet doors and drawers opened and closed, little alteration spells zinged about, and he could feel Hermione’s sympathy, pity, and determination to put something to rights radiating off her like light from the sun. 

As he finished up, setting tea things out for the second time today as he awaited their descent, he was unsurprised to see the lamp-orange eyes of his kitten, Artemis, gazing up at him from his ankles. She was a grayish-brownish tabby, mostly short-haired with a slightly longer sort of mane, and she was rapidly growing into adulthood. Lily had joked that the kitten was born a little adult, much like Severus, and that she’d had to be taught to chase strings and have fun a bit. She’d joked they’d be perfect together. 

He was glad she’d been here to comfort his mother before he’d been able to arrive last night, he thought, as he picked her up and scratched at the back of her neck thoughtfully. He hoped the rest of the litter had found proper homes prior to… well. Prior to his damnation, to the explosion of his idiocy, to the death of the only woman he’d ever loved.

He thought, sitting down in a small armchair in the library down the hall, that Lily would have been absolutely smitten with Hermione. It was a shame they hadn’t met until too late. He sighed, remembering that there would be another, much larger funeral this weekend.

“Mrrow?” Artemis climbed up his chest to headbutt his chin, recalling him from the dark he was sinking toward. He gave her a small smirk. 

“Greedy little cat, you are,” he murmured, scratching under her chin until she rolled onto her back, displaying her tawny belly in delight.

❧

“Now, there you are. You look lovely Madam...  _ Eileen.”  _ Hermione corrected herself, glad she could pass it off as an adjustment to informality, as she guided the woman  _ she _ knew as Madam Pince down the stairs. 

The same woman shot her a grateful look, standing a little straighter. Nowhere near the ramrod posture Hermione expected of her - yet - but a tinge closer. 

“Do you know, I learned at some point that you were the captain of Hogwarts’ Gobstones Team in a year it won the European Championship. I would  _ so  _ love some lessons at some point. I’m Muggleborn, you see, and didn’t play it until much later than most of my peers,” she added, looking carefully to see how the woman might react. 

“Are you indeed?” Eileen blinked, smiling. “My Tobias was a Muggle. Can’t say he much liked witchcraft and wizardry, but I loved him so very much,” she said, beginning to droop again, like her past-prime daisies. She shook it off, though, mustering another smile. “Well. I’d be very happy to give you a crash course sometime, Hermione. I haven’t seen my Severus look so good in … well, maybe  _ ever _ , and I can only conclude you’ve had something to do with that.”

Hermione blushed.  _ Well, yes, but not like  _ that, she thought, but what she said was, “Oh, gracious, you’re too kind. Em. What else did you enjoy in school?”

Eileen smiled dreamily. “Oh, of all the things I miss, what most often comes to mind is the books. Severus… well, he spelled the magical library that came with this house so that Tobias couldn’t, well, disorder it, but most of my own school books had to be hidden or they’d end up on the fire.” She sniffled, then gathered herself again. “I  _ have _ been trying to bring some order, and do some simple repairs. Somehow Sev found my wand and stuck it in there, too - I hadn’t seen it in ages but it’s amazing how things come back.”

Hermione grinned. “I’d love to see that, perhaps at a better time.” 

Eileen lit up, standing almost straight. “Would you indeed? Are you a fellow Ravenclaw, then?”

Hermione blinked in surprise - she’d thought Eileen might have been a Slytherin. “Em, the sorting hat was rather perplexed in my case, but I ended up in Gryffindor.”

Eileen peered at her thoughtfully. “Well. It might take someone like you to sort out my Sev. I have to say, Slytherin wasn’t as good for him as I thought. I think he fell in with a dark crowd, and I can’t say I liked it one bit.”

Hermione pasted the inquiring smile on her face, but she doubted it met her eyes.  _ Lady, if you only knew. _ “Em, oh, I can’t say it’s come up, really - this is all still quite new.”

Eileen glanced at her watch, then seemed to determine something. “We’ve an hour before the service, and it’s only a five minute drive. I don’t think I could take loitering there any longer than necessary, Hermione. Might you do me the favor of letting me show you the library now?”

❧

Severus abruptly banished the little kissy faces he was making at the kitten, who was sprawled out over his chest and touching her nose to his, as his mother and Hermione walked in. But he knew it was too late by the mischief in those damnably warm brown eyes. 

But they almost immediately sank to Aphrodite. “Mrs. Norris!” she cried out, taking in the cat.

Eileen turned to her in puzzlement, “I beg your pardon, dear?”

Hermione stalled a fraction of a second before shaking her head, affecting bashfulness. “Em, so sorry, Eileen - I thought I saw a novel I loved in my childhood. Silly me! It’s just a grimoire on gardening tricks for potioneering,” she said, picking up a tome on the library table near Severus’s chair.

Aphrodite flicked her tail a little, her eyes narrowing, as if she heard and resented the untruth. 

Severus  _ tssked  _ at her, finding himself surprisingly worried about the woman and the cat not getting along. 

❧

Hermione approached the cat, who looked quite young and uncharacteristically happy, with caution she could tell was being reflected right back at her. She missed Crooks -  _ Crooks _ would know what to do.

“You must be Artemis! I’ve heard a great deal about you, too,” she said, extending a couple fingers for the feline to imperiously sniff.

Snape looked down at the cat with knitted brows. “Artemis, Hermione is the one who reminded me that cats don’t like shows of bad temper and that I should try petting you rather than forgetting to close the door when I had that bad night, last week. You should be grateful to her high regard for your welfare.”

Miraculously, this seemed to make the cat look upon Hermione with a bit more magnanimity. Hesitantly, she butted her cheek up against the outstretched fingers and suffered her head to be scritched. 

Hermione, meanwhile, though,  _ Oh Godric, you are so lucky you didn’t end up with Filch. _

Followed rapidly by,  _ Oh sweet Salazar’s salty balls, how the fuck is Filch going to  _ survive _ without Mrs. Norris? _

She took a deep breath. Sufficient unto the day. Sufficient unto the day.

Then, she looked up brightly. “I’d love to see what you’re working on in here, Eileen! We do still have a little while before we ought to go!”

Severus glanced up at her, his thoughts characteristically unreadable. “I’ll fetch some tea here, then.”

Artemis weaved around his ankles without either tripping or slowing him as he strode down the hall, presumably toward the kitchen. 

❧

When he returned, there was only just time for a cup, so he set about fixing them. When he got to Hermione’s, however, he stopped. 

And thought a moment, a faint smirk forming. 

“Hermione, darling, how would you like your tea?”

Her head swiveled to him in the haste of shock, her eyes wide. He made a point of returning her gaze quite blandly. 

“Em… half a teaspoon of sugar, dash of milk, thanks,” she replied. 

Eileen, who’d been interrupted in her explanation of the hybrid system she’d been using to organize the modest but reputable collection of tomes in the house, planted her hands on her hips and looked down her long nose at her son. “You hadn’t yet sussed that out? I’ve half a mind to write you a list of things you ought to know about the lady in your life, silly son of mine.”

Severus shifted in his seat, on unfamiliar ground, and thought a moment before he spoke. “Please do. I would like to be more attentive, but may lack some wherewithal I’d be glad for you to impart, mother.”

Hermione stood behind Eileen, her head cocked with a look of confusion on her face. He stifled a chuckle, and she saw it, glowering, though her smile was firmly back in place by the time his mother turned back to her. “Let’s have a cuppa, then - we have to leave soon.”

❧

Eileen had asked, as they filed into the front row of dingy folding chairs, if it would be alright for her to sit in the middle. 

Hermione’d said of course (of course). 

The older but still-young woman had clutched her hand on one side and her son’s on the other’s throughout the mundane, humdrum service, reclaiming her hands only to wipe at her ever-tearing eyes. 

Hermione had seen the bruises that still stood testament to the relationship she’d had with her husband when helping her dress. She fell into a sort of dark reverie, trying to imagine what they must both be thinking.

When she looked over at Severus, his jaw had been fixed and his eyes gazed steadily at some fixed point ahead - one that seemed to be far beyond the wall that enclosed the room they sat in. 

Also in attendance were the local barmen and a few former colleagues from odd jobs turned drinking partners, along with some of their wives. 

The man in the coffin was handsome and lighter in coloring than his wife and son - but his face betrayed the capillary damage that often accompanied a long-term heavy drinking habit, and his knuckles, on the hands folded over his heart, were abraded as if he’d hit things. 

Habitually.

Hermione felt the world shrink to a sucking sort of grayness she sometimes felt around Dementors, or when listening to Harry recount summers denied food, locked away by the Dursleys. Her heart hurt as she realized that this depth was almost certainly where Severus had grown up. 

She started as she realized Severus’ head had swivelled, and that his fathomless black eyes were staring directly at her.

❧

She was  _ too fucking loud _ .

Severus settled his father’s tab with the barman as discreetly as possible, watching Hermione hold onto his mother’s arm as well-wishers approached her. Seeming to understand, she’d made certain Eileen had been looking elsewhere when the money changed hands.

Severus was tiring of this  _ understanding _ . Of the peaceful look on the old fucker’s dead damned face. Of the mourners who came more because they were habitually pious or maudlin more than because they’d known his mother or, really, his father at all. 

The barman, cheered to be paid, was next in line to offer his condolences to the widow, now. Would they all like to come by the pub after to drink a toast to the old man, on the house? His mother wept in gratitude and assented. She’d walk over with the others - it was just across the street.

He couldn’t  _ stand  _ it.

❧

Severus appeared at her elbow. 

“Darling, might you help me in gathering up the flowers and the photographs to take back to the house, before we join the others at the public house?”

Hermione looked up at him from helping her mother fix her mascara, nodding. “Oh, of course.”

Eileen looked up, seizing her son in an awkward hug. “Oh, Severus. Take your time. I know you didn’t always get on. I don’t think he always got on with anyone.” She sniffled, pulling back. “I’ve five offers of supper and a ride home - you needn’t come on this next leg if you don’t wish it. I know the smell of beer makes you sick.”

Severus looked at Eileen for a long moment and then nodded. “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

Hermione could sense more at play but wasn’t yet sure what as they gathered a few sparse family photos and small bouquets, placing them all in a box provided by the funeral director. The director smiled and said he’d go over to join them all in a pint - and he was sure they’d be alright saying a private goodbye if they wished, but that the doors would lock after them when they departed.

Severus nodded stiffly and then cast a look back at Hermione, who was standing by the cloakroom, watching. 

“My dear,” he said as the middle-aged director looked on with a twinkle in his eye, “Let me help you on with your coat.”

She heard the door to the outside closing as she stepped into the small cloakroom, running her thumb over the black lapel of his overcoat before she turned to pick up her new jacket.

But before she reached it, like a snarling storm, Severus had stepped in behind her and slammed her back into the wall. 

❧

“Do  _ not  _ pity me,” he seethed, holding her eyes with his, the edge of surprise and perhaps a bit of fright in them somehow only drawing him closer. 

“Severus,” she said, her brow furrowing, the fear fading into understanding, “I know what he was! I saw the-”

_ The bruises on her, _ her thought lept to him even as he smothered the words with his mouth crashing down over hers.  _ The pain in you. How badly you need to be loved - loved above others, which even your mother- _

He tore his tongue from her mouth, panting and pinning her to the wall. “Leave her out of it. She can’t help what she is. It’s not her fault.”

Hermione panted up at him, the thought projecting clearly.  _ She should have tried. _

He growled, raking his hands roughly down to free her breasts, pulling them above the low neckline of her dress and squeezing their perfection greedily in his hands, pinching the delicate erect nipples until she cried out and feeling a grim satisfaction as her head lolled back. He bit down roughly on her pulse point at her neck, feeling a shiver of fear and desire rising off of her. It was making him so fucking hard. He had never been so hard in his life, he thought, laving the bruises left by his teeth with his tongue and grinding his erection into her to show her before worrying her neck with a long, hard suck. 

He felt her reasonable objections melting, some out of desire, some out of sympathy, pity.

He pulled his mouth clear, grabbing her chin and turning her face to his, making her meet his eyes. 

“I find I need to be loved  _ now _ , Hermione,” he told her, pleased by the level coldness he heard in his tone. “I’m going to fuck you. I’ve cast quieting spells. You may scream as much as you like. Are you ready for me to proceed?”

Stilling, she gave him an unfathomable look and a tight nod. 

He felt the grim smile settle on his lips. He’d fuck her clear of this pity before the night was through. He’d fuck her to crawling and mewling and moaning only  _ his _ name. She was  _ his _ , now.

❧

She shivered. He wasted no time in shoving her skirt up, fingers pausing appreciatively at her garters (she’d intended those for Sirius, if anyone, to discover), before he yanked the gusset of her knickers aside, unfastened his pants, and drove into her with a moan. 

She could feel the wall behind her back crack as he ploughed her, each thrust a lesson in carnal brutality, his fingers reaching around under her hips to pull her delicate labia aside with such force it felt he meant not just to give himself unfettered access but to tear her in two. 

Then, the pounding of his cock not slowing, one of his hands was at her face, pinching her nose and covering her mouth. She was startled by this for a moment until she realized she couldn’t breathe.

Then, she kicked, fought, looked into his eyes with alarm and rebuke as she pushed at him, projected a litany of  _ Why? Who in the hell taught you to do this like  _ this _? Severus I will  _ never _ let you again if you don’t talk about this like a bloody adult!  _ and he yielded not an inch, and when she scratched bloody furrows in his stomach under his shirt and the pistoning of his hips only quickened. He only smiled grimly at her.

“Wait for it, Hermione. You’ll feel it soon.”

_ Fuck, he’s going to suffocate me,  _ she thought, panicking, the edges of her sight going black and a sort of unearthly euphoria permeating her.  _ Does he have any notion of how to stop in time?,  _ her last truly cogent thought, evaporated from her. Suddenly floating, feeling her desire to flail herself free ebb, she didn’t think she’d really been dying before, not  _ really  _ hallucinating some end-of-life fix to all the problems of her life’s narrative. She thought this, now, might  _ really _ be dying _.  _

Somehow, it made her a little giddy.

As if he’d been waiting to see the smile her mouth could not express finally reach her eyes, he let go, letting her take in a long, ragged breath as his hand darted down and… 

Grabbed her swollen, abraded clit and  _ pinched _ . Hard. 

She came screaming, terrified, gushing. Her knees collapsed - but it didn’t matter, because he didn’t care, didn’t care she was rubbed raw and bruised, oversensitive, not supporting her own weight, recovering from something she had believed was either a near death or a near life experience. Unrelenting, he just kept fucking, and fucking, and fucking her, his every crashing volley pushing her up the wall as far as she’d fallen since the last.

❧

She’d come as he knew she would.  _ Yes, she  _ seems  _ so like Lily,  _ he thought. _ But this beauty, this mind,  _ this  _ I can pull down into the cold and dark and the pain with me.  _

He could not get enough of her. He kept pulling back his own imminent ejaculation to pull her farther down, down. Into that animalistic place. That place where bad things happened but all you wanted was to feel, so hard the pain and pleasure mingled into a startling new heat. 

She’d been wet when she came, just like he’d imagined. His trousers were soaked. He wondered how many more times he could make her. He resolved to learn.

❧

Hermione had lost track of how long it had been long ago, let alone all the things they’d done together. She was on the hard floor and the tip of his cock was sliding against the sticky wet inside of her upper thigh as the base of it thrust through his hand. 

His  _ other _ clenched fist, meanwhile, thrust into her poor, beleaguered pussy in the same time. She wondered if she’d ever unstretch from this assault. It didn’t feel like it, but she was so obliterated, so inside out and so blissed to death, it felt good. Maybe his hand would always fuck her. Maybe the muscles of her delicate walls would always spasm and jump at the scrape of his knuckles as they railroaded past. 

“Would you like more, Hermione? Shall I keep going? There are more...  _ things  _ we can do.”

She looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes and shuddered. He’d cast some sort of spell, and it was as if a third hand was over her nose and mouth again and she didn’t know what she’d say even if she  _ could _ speak. It didn’t even occur to her to project a thought now. 

He punched into her, harder, faster. “Or should I come on, or perhaps  _ in  _ you, and let you go? I think I’ve earned my turn, don’t you? My turn to get  _ you _ wet? To drench  _ you?” _

She nodded slightly, bearing down on his punishing fist to feel it burn more.

“Tccch… good girl. Not so powerless now, either of us.”

She tried, but couldn’t remember what he was talking about. The dark was building again. 

Kneeling over her with her head bumping the wall, her ass and lower back up on his thighs, and her shoulder blades on the floor, he pummeled her such that she thought the pine planks beneath her would snap. Her neck bent awkwardly and joints all over her body that never had before cracked. Her insides burned as the friction built, kindling fires within, making her distantly wonder if she should feel ashamed to have allowed this.

Then force blocking her breath was gone and he was crying out her name, bucking into his on hand wildly, his other hand  _ opening,  _ fingers  _ spreading  _ inside her as her breasts, her stomach were wetted with a spatter of his semen, and she sucked in a long gasp then  _ screamed _ , her voice hitching and failing, her back arching so high she toppled off him onto her side, everything going white…

And then everything went  _ black. _

❧

He lowered her into the steaming froth of the tub slowly, then climbed in after her, pulling her onto his lap before he took up the flannel he’d already soaked in a salve of murtlap, dittany, and a few rarer ingredients from his personal stores. The Wiggenweld potion he’d tipped down her throat was already doing its work - he saw the marks his teeth had left all over her fading into nothing, saw the love bites he’d sucked into her skin lifting away.

He wished he could leave just one.

Shuddering with that thought, he reached the flannel down between her legs, angling her hips above the water’s surface, and devoured the sight of the swelling going down, gently working a corner of the cloth up into her first here, then there, with long, clever fingers, and feeling her shift in her daze as she healed. 

She was coming around now - as she hadn’t on the drive back to the house, or in the Floo black to his rooms in the castle’s dungeon. Hadn’t as he’d carefully, methodically undressed her and mended the tears in her clothes. He wanted her to feel whole walking away from him (and he wanted to see her wear it all again and  _ remember). _

He let her hips submerge again and smoothed the flannel over the still bruise-tinged tips of her breasts, much sucked and not unbitten, returning them to a less altered sort of beauty. He passed a clean bit of the cloth over his own lip, where he’d bit too hard in the aftermath of his chaotic climax, drawing blood. 

He'd lain there with her, gazing at her, giving her the potion and checking her body for anything more superficial injury, stroking her tense muscles into restfulness, for her didn't know how long after. He wished he could have talked to her - he could have woken her, but she was exhausted. Wanted to wake her, but he thought he'd already taken too much.

He didn't know why she'd let him, and a small, vulnerable part of him anticipated her eventual disgust. Wrath. Horror. Disdain. And that part of him mourned something who'd become… a  _ friend. _

Her eyes were focusing now, and swiveling around to his. He braced himself, trying to get his armor into place. Her voice, a moment later, was a rasp. “Severus."

"Hermione," he murmured in reply, quiet and sad.

Her gaze found him and rested balefully. "You’re meant to have specific, explicit consent, especially for breath play, and a safe word for any of that, you ignorant bastard.”

He blinked down at her, taken aback with the… itemized objections… and wondering if this was when she’d slap him, or if this was when she’d run.  _ Merlin I think it would kill me if she cried; maybe it would be for the best. Cry and set me free, Hermione. Everything, everything about me is wrong.  _ He hadn’t been inducted into the arts he’d subjected her to in circles where any of those things were expected, but he shuddered to think of her soft flesh subject to any of the Dark Lord’s little parties, and wondered what better ways might exist.

She did slap him, her calendula-scented foam-covered hand turning his head hard and fast, leaving him tasting blood - his own, this time. 

He felt  _ grateful _ for it, somehow. It felt the opposite of shunning him. 

But she didn’t go. She lay there in his arms, assessing her healing body with sought movements, cradled in his arms as if he were a prince who’d rescued her, not the dragon who had burned her down.

After letting it pool for a long moment, he quietly bent and spat the blood onto the flannel that had already served its purpose, then looked down at her, primed to feel the loss, the regret when she fled. Ready for the rebuke, the condemnation. Wanting her to hurry up and hate him so he could go on. Go on with the desolate life he know how to live, or to rush to its end. Because ultimately, was he any better… any better than…

He couldn't even finish the thought, and it disgusted him with himself.

But  _ she… _ she looked up at him with that damnable cleverness she wielded so casually, cutting this and gutting that. “Do you feel better now?” she asked quietly. Her throat already must be healed - the rasp was almost gone.

Blinking in surprise, he was caught off guard enough to wonder - well, did he?

_ Maybe, now that you've asked me that? _

After a long moment, looking down at the vulnerable, formidable, beautiful, fucking defiant woman across his lap, he nodded. “Yes. I do.”

She shook her head, sighing. “You need to know that I gave you this.”

He felt his face distorting from its mask of calm but couldn’t pull it back. “... what?” he asked, quiet, hearing his voice break.

She moved then, sitting up sideways on his lap and pulling his chin up to make him look at her. “I  _ gave _ you this.”

He shuddered, trying to look away. 

She brutally whipped his head around, not letting him take his eyes from hers, shifting to sit astride him so he couldn't shake her off. “Severus, look at me. It was a gift. You were miserable at properly asking but you tried, and I said yes and I was able - perhaps save for one point which  _ we will later discuss _ \- to revise that position. You were miserable at properly asking, but you were also just  _ miserable _ \- of course you were - and you would accept no softer comfort so I let you take it rough.”

He flinched. He was not prepared for this and it  _ burned _ him. 

She sighed, then lent down and,  _ so  _ gently, she  _ kissed  _ him. 

It broke him into splinters.

❧

By the time she’d slowly stroked his lips open with her tongue, he was crying convulsively beneath her. He both returned her kiss with an eager innocence completely unlike the man who’d demolished her earlier  _ and _ clearly couldn’t get enough air to sustain him through his sobs without her relinquishing his mouth. 

He wept  _ so  _ quietly when she did, despite the violence with which it wracked his body. She folded her arms around him and coaxed his ear close to press to the constant thrum of her heart in her chest, holding him there. 

A tear or two of her own fell.

Eventually, his shaking arms snaked around her waist, awkward, as if unsure of their welcome, but, after some hesitant minutes passed, they’d gradually wratchetted tight, until he held her for dear life while she watched over him, eyes and nose streaming, dissolving in unselfconscious pain.

She picked up the same blood-marked flannel he’d used on her to wipe his face clean from time to time and just held him.

He couldn’t stop crying and crying and crying, shaking so hard she worried his bones would be reduced to powder before he could reign it all back. When last, but when Lily Evans Potter died, had Severus Snape been allowed to  _ cry?  _ And now that he'd let himself, what hope or reassurance could recall him?

Sighing, she reached down between them and took him in hand.

His head shot up, his hands flying back and pinning themselves, open, palms facing her in surrender, against the tub’s edge. His eyes met hers with bald shock.

She gathered him up and stroked him down. And again. She felt his pulse there as he swelled to her touch.

He looked anguished, mouth trying and failing to find words as his eyes, reluctant to leave hers, nevertheless rolled back, and a moan rose from his throat as she glided forward, and, giving him a moment to meet her eyes through his tears, guiding him into her.

He sobbed with frantic questions on his face as he slid home and, thighs firm around his hips, she started to move over him. 

She shook her head, pulling one of his arms back around her waist, placing the other hand cupped beneath her breast. “I am giving you this, too, Severus. You  _ do _ need love, and I will give it to you tonight. I will show it to you. I am  _ not  _ the solution to your problems, but I might be able to show you something on the other side of this. I am my own problem, and no one’s solution, for now. I would like to help you seek peace, though, as I think you may have never have done when I knew you last.”

She bit her lip, then, as he sank to a deep, resonant place. “Yessss… like that,” she heard her own voice purr.

She wondered if he’d ever given anyone else power over him without winding up hurt as he shuddered, burying a kiss between her breasts.

And she quickened, determined to ride him hard enough to send him to a peaceful sleep. She’d be there for when the nightmares came to call, tonight - she had already decided that. She’d love him with whatever parts of her he needed. She’d take  _ care _ of him.

And then she’d really take a bath and let  _ herself _ cry - for him,  _ because _ of him, for Sirius, for the havoc bad men wrecked on whoever they could master. For Remus and the pain he must have felt when she ran. For herself for the idiocy of wanting to fix everyone. For Harry, orphaned so young he’d only be able to remember his parents under the torturous influence of dementors, and then only at their worst. 

For  _ her _ Harry, who might be somewhere frantic with worry, trying to get her back. For her  _ Ron _ , who’d be right there beside him, no matter what had transpired between the two of them. 

She shifted her hips, taking the sobbing Severus deeper, flexing her thighs faster.

For  _ herself _ .

Not much longer, then… and then… she cried out, her back bowing, her soul in flight.


	28. Order and Disorder

### NOVEMBER 13, 1981 - HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Hermione sat at the large round table, this second time, as though a loud noise might frighten her away. Every time the door opened, she jumped, then gathered herself to greet whoever had come in and resume jotting things down in her notebook as they awaited the time the Order meeting would officially start. 

That would be at 7:30 AM. She’d gotten here, tired and still wet from every manner of perfume and bubbles known to the Prefect’s Bath, two hours early. 

Around 7:15 AM, Severus came in, raising an eyebrow at her anxious twitch as she looked at the door. He started as if to come sit next to her, but, as if considering the tension oozing off of her, elected to backtrack a step, sitting directly across from her and peering at her intently whenever her focus was elsewhere instead.

She, ever the quick study, assiduously avoided all eye contact with him.

It was 7:28, and all the others were seated, including Albus and a weary, thoughtful-looking Minerva, when Sirius and Remus strode in together, an animated conversation trailing off as they entered the room and called cheery hellos to all. 

Which was just _unsettling_ , in light of everything from Hermione’s increasing certainty that her only recourse was to throw herself from a tower or start shopping for the right nunnery. Neither of which she had time for at present. 

Of course, the bastards _had_ to sit on either side of her.

She did look up at Minerva then, as if to say, ARE THESE _BASTARDS_ BLOODY _KIDDING_ ME?

The Transfiguration professor sat back, startled, and then arched a brow, looking around to figure out what she’d missed.

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head, leaning back in her chair with her arms folded.

Then, Dumbledore cleared his throat, glancing around with an edge of amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Ah, what a joy it is, in difficult times, to be surrounded by energetic _young_ people.”

Minerva pursed her lips, but most of those around the table smiled and nodded agreeably. Severus, shockingly, gave a little, dark chuckle.

Letting his little smirk fall into a benign smile, Albus cleared his throat. “To business, then. I understand that arrangements have been made for young Harry?”

 _Oh, dear_ , Hermione thought, standing up shakily and preparing for a serious dip in her popularity. 

She slid a sheaf of papers across the table to Arabella Figg. “Em, Arabella, I found a village in Scotland with a cat rescue that needs a new afterhours resident - there’s a small cottage on the grounds, and you’d essentially just need to live there and be present in case of emergency. I thought… I thought it might suit you, and I hope it does, because I’ve also found you a job nearby during the day, if you’ll take it. Seems far nicer than Little Whinging to me, but, well. Em. Doubtless you all have noticed a third and, to Alice and Frank’s credit, increasingly well-adjusted baby among us this last week. This baby… is Harry’s mother’s blood-nephew, and he and Harry, who will be thought of as fraternal twins by their new parents, are going tomorrow to live with their elder sister… _me.”_

A sea of eyes blinked up at her. “Em, this time’s me, who is not quite a year their senior. Hermione, Henley (ne Dudley), and Harry Garnier.” She shrugged. “They’d wanted _one_ more - I think my parents will manage with three.”

❧

There was a sea of questions, most of which Severus was kind enough to answer. Hermione spent a long while watching Sirius clearly measure out his breaths - but also shoot her a sad little smile, as if to let her off the hook somehow. 

On her other side. Remus had seized her hand, giving her a slight but encouraging nod.

She stalwartly didn’t melt into hysterical laughter.

“So, when does this … family reunion… occur, then?” asked Alastor, glancing about. 

Hermione nodded. “On Sunday - er, the day after tomorrow - I’m meant to show up with Harry and Henley. I’m their godmother, you see, and -”

“- and as their _godfather_ , of course, I will be accompanying my beloved _fiance_ to regale the boys’ parents with tales of their exploits during our two week vacation together, and to give my regards to young Hermione Garnier, named after the aforementioned godmother and fiance, for the loan of her brothers,” Sirius interjected smoothly. 

Severus sat forward, but didn’t seem to be able to figure out how to insert himself, to his chagrin.

Hermione smiled a tinge too brightly, she already knew, as she sat forward. “Em, Arabella, if you’d like to help them move in or just come by to say hello, that’d be grand, too. Em, Alastor, I’m sure you’ll want to see the wards and give them a few kicks - you could be my dad, if you’d like, who we were staying with in the Highlands? Em, with a patch, though.” 

Moody was already nodding in approval, pleased to have been considered and included. “And a very proud papa I am indeed, though _this_ scamp of a future son-in-law needs an eye kept on.”

Hermione nodded. “Em, and… er, perhaps, Albus, you could be Arabella’s… Arabella’s…”

“-Doting elder brother should do, I would think,” he supplied lightly. Arabella blushed and ducked her head, but Hermione didn’t think this was the time to tell her about dear old Gellert. Lord, she hoped he'd loved someone saner since.

“Em, and… and… Well, Remus and Severus, you could be a charming couple we met at a Cèilidh!”

The two looked at each other, then her. The room was rather quiet.

Sirius picked up her hand. “Of _brothers_ .” He laughed gregariously. “A couple _of brothers_ , of course. Not that you’ll charm my lovely fiancee from me anytime soon, and don’t think I haven’t seen the covetous glances!” he joked, hopefully not noticing the ice in Severus’s eyes or the way Remus’s hand clamped down on her fingers just over her far armrest. 

Minerva rolled her eyes. “And I’ll be a stray cat. Right then. That’s that. No more covers, I'm bored.” She shook out her shoulders and started handing around bound reports. “Moving along, I’m distributing files detailing the capture of Peter Pettigrew, who Ms. Granger and I apprehended and who is now in Azkaban. The particulars are disturbing, and as,” she huffed, “ _love_ is in the air, I’ll leave you to review them or not at a later point.”

Minerva skewered them all over her glasses in a way so much more like her than most of what Hermione had seen lately that she nearly clapped - not that her hands were her own at present. But then the older woman resumed speaking.

“You should all be aware that I will be taking some much-needed time off to pursue some personal projects, not least of which is getting myself straight after too bloody much death and mourning for anyone to have to bear in so short a time. If you don’t know the details, please know that Ms. Granger saved me from making an unforgivable mistake during the apprehension of Mr. Pettigrew - and that I do not presently consider myself fit for field work or, more taxingly, _teaching_. It is because of Hermione's good judgement and her stellar academic and practical skill that I would like to recommend she teach the remainder of the year’s classes in Transfiguration.”

Hermione blinked, belatedly closing her mouth. “Em… I…”

Dumbledore nodded decisively, his smile beatific. “Ah! An excellent plan! Ms. Granger, I will see to it you get a contract at once. Is Monday too soon for you to start? What with the Wizengamot and _several_ unexpected staffing changes that have come up since Samhain, I fear I’m a bit more overextended than I’d thought I would be.”

Hermione wondered if one’s eyes could ever be pushed out of their sockets with incredulity. 

Then Sirius gave her hand a reassuring squeeze - and when she looked over at him, he met her with an encouraging smile.

Across the table she saw Severus roll his eyes and look elsewhere, fuming.

“Em, I would like a week to review Minerva’s lesson plans and notes, sir.” Then, blinking, she shook her head free of cobwebs to ask. “What other staffing changes, sir? And is there a common reason? Leaving midyear is unusual, is it not?”

“Yes!” Dumbledore said, looking wounded. “And it says plainly in their annual contracts that I cannot recommend them for other academic postings _or_ knit them socks for Yule in the year of a breach!” He shook his head, reminding Hermione for a moment of the few words he said at her first Sorting Feast. “But it seems that several members of the faculty and staff were holding on to their posts with a mind to sit out the war in what they supposed to be the safest place possible. I suppose _that_ says good things about us,” he mused thoughtfully for a moment, but then shook his head. “Since then, however, I’ve had resignations from our Librarian, our Muggle Studies professor, and even the caretaker! I have some resumes filed, but really, how the rats do flee a floating ship!” 

Hermione was thinking. This… hmmm. This was bloody _brilliant._ A wide grin started to spread over her face. 

“Ms. Granger, would you care to let us know what you’re thinking?” Minerva said. “I see gears moving.”

Hermione beamed. “We’re going to fix it all. We’re going to make the changes that need to be made. And we’re going to start it - all of it - with Hogwarts.”


	29. Being the Change

### NOVEMBER 14, 1981

It was a little after midnight, and after 17 hours of hashing things through, Hermione saw that look in the others’ eyes (well, other than the delighted Dumbledore) that meant they were all plotting her untimely demise. She was so _excited_ \- this was the last phase of resistance before they would all give in!

“C’mon, people, you know I’m right about this!” she exclaimed, bouncing on her toes. Remus and Sirius were now huddled together, plotting, rather than corralling her, and Dumbledore kept nodding to himself and absently murmuring “Yes! Quite so! _Quite_ so!”

“Let’s just get everything finalized and summarized for the notes! Dinner and whatever you’d like to drink’s on me at the Three Broomsticks, just as soon as we’re done!”

She dodged to the side but reached out to catch Moody’s eye as it went hurtling past her ear. “Alastor, come now! That’s hardly sanitary _or_ collegial. And imagine what you’d do if it broke!”

The veteran Auror banged his forehead against the table repeatedly, then looked up with a wail. “But I don’t _want_ to teach!”

Hermione shrugged. “But you’ll be damned good at it and if you take some time off from the Ministry, I suspect it’ll add years to your tenure there! Right after the war your paranoia mounted to such an extent that it scared the hell out of your colleagues, and while you were probably right about everything, let’s not dangle an excuse to put softer Aurors at the helm under leadership’s noses, shall we?”

She walked over and rubbed his shoulders, which tensed, flinching away. “Go away,” he grumbled. 

“Oh, Alastor, please just imagine it - haven’t you always wanted a world in which more people understood danger like you? This is your chance - you start with all the youth of England, Scotland, and Ireland!”

He cast her a sidewise look, mouth twitching. “Alright, alright, so it’s a good idea,” he groused, snatching his eye from the hand with which she held it out to him. “But I’m allowed to be grumpy about it.”

Dumbledore shook his head appreciatively. “I must say, Hermione, if Minerva continues to insist on not being my likely successor, you would make quite an excellent -”

“-I don’t want to be Headmistress!” Hermione insisted.

“-quite an _excellent_ Supreme Mugwump,” Dumbledore finished, unruffled. “Oh, how I would pay to watch you subject the Underwump from Brazil to a meeting like this. Oh, it gives me little shivers,” he concluded, his smile dreamy.

Hermione shook her head. “Maybe let’s keep it to the Minister of Magic - wouldn’t want me _too_ big for my britches, would we?” she said sarcastically. 

Dumbledore merely nodded. “Oh, perhaps, perhaps. I tremble to think what education reform you could achieve from that seat, truly! Wrangling the Wizengamot is irksome business, mind, but you wouldn’t have to try to reason with MACUSA!”

She shook her head. “Alright, so. Alastor will join Sirius in teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, giving each of them something more like a reasonable load - and us all a chance to confound the curse Riddle put on the position by structurally outwitting it.” 

Around the table, weary sighs.

So she continued. “There should be no structural difficulty - there are a half dozen DADA classrooms with faculty quarters to match, so they will even be able to have courses at the same time, significantly decreasing the complication of scheduling starting in the next school year.”

Sirius raised his hand timidly. “Hermione, now, I’ve only committed to one year, and-”

She scowled and cut him off. “-And you’re perfect and you love it. You’re adored. Alastor will be adored too, but differently. You, who will age _quite_ well, thanks, will be winner of so many Witch Weekly smile award things your head will spin, more beloved with every generation that passes through these halls.”

Sirius held up his hands in surrender and she nodded. _Damn right you surrender. Now, who’s next?_

“Ah! And the school, which both richly needs one for the wellbeing of its children _and_ faculty and which is well positioned to lead the way in normalizing the field in this time of great trauma and recovery, will hire this woman, Charity Burbage, as its first Mind Healer! She applied to become the Muggle Studies teacher for lack of work in her chosen field, in which she is well trained to work side by side with Poppy Pomfrey to see to everyone’s wellbeing. Remus will be her apprentice and help her with, what I suspect, will rapidly become a large workload as she and her field become trusted by our students and colleagues.”

Remus shot her a wan smile, nodding. “I hope you aren’t just constructing this opportunity to help me, Hermione, because I have to say it sounds like a ruddy good idea even if I’m ten miles away from it, helping you teach Transfiguration or something.”

Hermione shrugged. “I suspect you’d be very good at that, but also that Severus and I,” she paused as the Potions Master radiated approbation from his seat, “will each assist in the search for counterpart teachers ourselves.” 

She shook her head and looked away from the dark eyes boring into her. “Em, and Hagrid will be apprenticed to Professor Kettleburn - a move that could hardly be disputed after he helps to solve the true mystery of the Chamber of Secrets and clear his name,” 

“-WHAT?!” chorused from around the room, but Hermione waved the interruption off, “Oh, hush, it can wait until next Christmastime, and I don’t think there’s time to do it tomorrow - ah, yes!” She looked up again. “And Eileen Prince will go into hiding here at Hogwarts as Madam Pince, Librarian, so that no repercussions from Death Eaters suspecting Severus was a _triple_ agent could fall on her.”

Dumbledore beamed. Severus groaned. 

Hermione shook her head. “I’m missing things. What haven’t I tampered with yet?”

Dumbledore looked up from his notes. “Em. Let me look… ah!” He read through the half-moon glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Flying and Quidditch?”

Hermione nodded. “We should hire a Veela or flight-capable half Veela, a sentient magical being born to flying, to co-teach with Madam Hooch.”

“Hmm,” Dumbledore said. “Arithmancy?”

Hermione shook her head. “There’s a young, ambitious goblin by the name of Griphook who works at Gringotts in Diagon Alley. He’s a wickedly capable Arithmancer. We should see if he could be tempted to co-teach with Professor Sinestra. There are several Goblin-made items wasting away in the Room of Hidden Things we could use to sweeten the salary.” She paused thoughtfully. “Em, just don’t touch any of the headgear.”

Dumbledore chuckled, putting down the list. “Divination?”

Hermione was pacing in her excitement now, exulting in the intellectual burn and the rhythm of the conversation. “Hire a centaur! There’s always a member of the herd who’s on the outs with the others in the Forbidden Forest, and they’re good people who actually know some things they can explain, unlike Trelawney, who has a talent she can’t understand.”

“Herbology?” 

Hermione shrugged, “Are there no wood nymphs?”

“Charms?”

She let out a long, raspberry, annoyed she didn’t have a ready solution. “Might have to post that one.”

“History of Magic?”

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. “Albus, I’m not a miracle worker here - but we can try to talk about it, and get Binns to include the recent war in his ungodly lectures, at least. Maybe we could bring Bathilda Bagshot in to overhaul the curriculum and oversee hiring - hell, maybe she’d like to teach. She’d be safer here anyway.”

Dumbledore looked a little concerned for a moment, but decided to table that remark for later, picking up the list again. “Em… the Caretaker?”

Hermione shook her head. “Should be elected from among the Castle’s elves, by the Castle’s elves. They’re doing the work anyway. Let the larger faculty and the prefects handle discipline instead of getting someone who says,” she picked up Argus Filch’s letter of interest, “‘I love kids, I do, an’ I’d love ta help ‘em be safe and tidy in the great school what is Hogwarts,’ and then paint a target on them for every troublemaker in the school and Peeves to boot. They all end lobbying to use thumbscrews!”

Dumbledore nodded. “And this,” he peered closer to his own writing, reading something back verbatim, “Grand Scheme to integrate Muggle and General Studies?”

Hermione nodded. In some ways, this was her favorite part. “Alright, kids, I think this is the end, so hang in with me just until we get through it, then fish and chips and whiskey for all!” She took a deep breath, hardly hearing the tormented groans or Minerva’s snores. “Nonmagical and Magical General Studies will be added as required curriculum areas for all subjects, to be team taught. I highly recommend there be four constituent teaching positions. On the Muggle Studies side, we need to hire people with first hand familiarity with both worlds, including this Mr. Filch, who loves children and is wizardborn but non-magical, and a certain Mr. Arthur Weasley, who works in Ministry’s Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. I think they should both be scheduled for interviews immediately - and informed that a condition of taking it will be that at least one month each calendar year be spent living among Muggles, without magic. The counterpart positions for Magical Studies should be held by people who expertly understand all aspects of the running of wizarding households, including domestic spells and Wizarding traditions. I strongly recommend that at least one of the two be staffed by a house elf, and that the other be offered to Mrs. Molly Weasley.”

She took a breath. Dumbledore had come up with popcorn and was on the edge of his seat. Everyone else was glowering or asleep. “These classes will sometimes be taught in double-tandem groups, in which, say, cooking and cleaning are explained from both Muggle and Magical standpoints. The classes will mostly be broken out such that Muggleborns learn how magical households and traditions are kept, and wizards and witches from magical households learn how these same things work in the Muggle world. Only understanding,” she thundered, bringing her fist down hard on the table, “can keep some other Voldemort from shattering our peace, even if he is vanquished! Only fellowship with and respect of our Muggle and non-human brethren will keep mages from once again becoming a menace to each other and the rest of the world!”

She panted, looking around. Dumbledore was clapping and spinning in circles in his chair, laughing. The others were bleary and murderous or … oh, look, Severus had even fallen asleep. 

Dumbledore finally came to a dizzy halt. “And, my dear? Did you have anything else?”

She shook her head, feeling dizzy but triumphant. 

“Nothing, say, on the integration of literature, composition, non-magical mathematics…?”

She scowled at him. “I’m tired. Let’s figure that out later. I need a drink.” 

Albus threw his head back and laughed, but he did stand up and set the chairs of the sleeping parties to jiggling with a twitch of his wand. “Let’s take my Floo! I think I’ll fall asleep walking otherwise.”

Everyone started getting up and ducking through the fire - except Alice, who’d waved Frank off ages ago and approached Hermione. “I’m sure Frank got the elves to save something for me and I’m knackered - but you can count me in as a Transfiguration candidate if you’d like. I’ve got a solid NEWT and I feel like I’ve fought enough for a lifetime in the last few years. But Hermione, what about catching those last four Death Eating menaces so me and Frank can move on?”

Hermione smiled. “Let’s talk about that with Dumbledore tomorrow, shall we?”


	30. To Be Young

Rosmerta kicked them back through the Floo at 2 AM. But she  _ had _ suffered them to eat shepherd’s pie first. 

Hermione stumbled out, absolutely knackered and a little punchy after two exhausting nights in a row and an all-day meeting of pure, exhilarating making-shit-better, which was her altered state of choice - and one she’d gotten a lot more circumspect about how to do effectively since SPEW. 

(not that she’d given up on SPEW, thanks,  _ Ronald _ )

Anyway, she was thinking about all that and also, generally,  _ Woo, I’m exhausted! _ when she tumbled out of the grate… and was caught in the act of falling over backward by Severus, whose gaze was dark, intense, and focused.

_ We need to talk. _

She jerked in his arms - she’d mostly been thinking  _ This is  _ such _ an ice dancing pose! _ and  _ Oh shit oh shit oh shit panic! hit the panic button, people, battle stations!  _ He had  _ never _ projected a thought at her before, and this one's depth and clarity were precise and loud and extremely disconcerting. 

She smiled anxiously, stalling and trying to get her feet back under her. She was not ready for that conversation, especially not from an actual,  _ literal _ compromised and off-balance position.

Or, you know, at  _ all _ .

But then… strong arms lifted her up with a comfortable but firm grasp on her upper arms, putting her back on her feet, though very much within the personal space of… 

“Oh, hello Remus! The pie was excellent tonight, wasn’t it?” Hermione squeaked brightly, darting her eyes up to his concerned, warm,  _ territorial _ gaze and then over to Severus’s increasingly irate one, then flicking back and forth too quickly for either to  _ quite  _ burn her. 

She saw Sirius, over Remus’s shoulder, glancing at her predicament with a smirk before shaking his head and heading through the door to the hall where their little suites of rooms were. 

_ Severus’s. Remus’s. Sirius’s. Severus’ Remus’ Sirius’? DAMN these men and their bloody terminal esses!  _ she thought, her gaze drifting toward some vague point in the distance as an expression of ire pursed her lips. 

By the time she’d shaken off the inane mental tangent, both men had stepped back a little - neither of them glowering at the other any longer, and both seeming a little wary of her. 

It seemed her expression had  _ frightened _ them.

She couldn’t suppress the smirk, but she  _ tried  _ to minimize it. Realizations that one has power when one has felt rather vulnerable can be rather invigorating like that.

But, all too quickly, she felt her advantage diminishing, and both men began, physically or ineffably, to lean toward her (and also their rival).

Then, the most miraculous thing happened. 

The wireless switched on, and some sort of stately old waltz was playing. Then, suddenly, Albus swept her up in his arms and was leading her, 1 2 3! 1 2 3! 1 2 3! around his office. 

“Oh, Hermione, I cannot thank you enough!” he crowed. “The faculty NEVER invites me to drinks anymore - I’m either too intimidating or too odd - which is it, do you think? Ah, dash it, who cares -” he said, lifting her up the stairs to the higher bit where his desk sat and then spryly dashing up after her with a sparkling blue wink. “The butterbeer was excellent and I do LOVE reforming education! What a breath of fresh air you are! I’ve never been so delighted to see the space-time continuum smashed to smithereens before in my life - and it’s been quite a long one, you know!” 

She laughed breathlessly, already too winded to do anything else as they went up more stairs, then spun and spun, Dumbledore humming along, then down and down and spin, spin, spin. 

Dumbledore  _ definitely  _ stepped on Snape’s foot intentionally as they passed the two gaping men, and then narrowly missed a dodging Lupin.

Dumbledore looked up from Hermione and waved them off with a twitch of his fingers from their joined hands. “Off to bed, off to bed, you both, you look so  _ terribly _ grumpy and tired! We have much to do this weekend, you know!”

Then, he resumed humming, and they went twice around the office again, the aggrieved parties departing before the song stopped and Albus bowed over Hermione’s hand. 

“Mademoiselle, an  _ unparalleled _ pleasure,” he said, smirking. 

She tried to catch her breath, beaming at him. “Thanks for the rescue.” 

Dumbledore, doing her the great favor of not playing dumb, gave an airy little wave. “Pssh, not at all. They’re all of them so very  _ pretty _ \- if, well,  _ messy _ . I believe you will find Professor Black’s door open, if that information should prove useful to you. Interesting, is it not, that he has opted  _ not  _ to move into the DADA quarters?” He beamed. “Do enjoy it all -  _ ah _ , to be young again!”

Whereupon, smiling, he started to waltz alone around the office to the next song, twirling and throwing a great many more little tricks in as he hummed his way around, and she smiled and walked through the door to the hall.

❧

She closed the door behind her, holding her still-short breath and endeavoring to move as quietly as she could. She’d even cast a  _ Muffliato  _ on herself in the hall. 

Then, she looked up. “Well, here I am, an utter disaster. Which you can no doubt tell. If you don’t want to call me a harlot and throw me out, em, how do you feel about snuggling?”

Sirius laughed softly and opened his arms. She let herself fall into them gratefully.

“So,” he said after a long moment. “Which of them is better in bed, out of curiosity?”

She punched him halfheartedly in the ribs and he halfheartedly feigned an attempt to squirm away, along with some indignation. “I don’t know that. I ran away from Lupin when he was all glowing in morning light-”

Sirius nodded, a dreamy look in his eyes, as he interjected, “Oh, yes, yes, he does do that.”

She shook her head at him, then continued, “And  _ then _ I went to see Severus, thinking I could converse with a friend to calm myself, only his horrible abusive  _ father  _ -”

Sirius shook his head, interjecting again, “Maybe you  _ do _ have a type.”

She shook her head more vigorously. “Shush! Look, his horrible abusive father had just  _ died _ , he’d gotten in at horrible o’clock -”

Now he was kissing along her hairline. “Oh, horrible o’clock, that’s even worse than  _ awful  _ o’clock,” he murmured into her skin.

“-  _ AND _ he had gotten the funeral to happen the same day because he couldn’t stand to have it drawn out -”

He was kissing down her neck now, nodding, “Very, very relatable, yes, wish I’d done that very thing.”

“-and so of  _ course _ I helped him get ready, then helped his mother get ready, and met his  _ cat _ -”

“Ooo, that  _ is  _ serious!” he breathed onto her shoulder. Then he looked up a moment. “And I  _ thought  _ his hair looked better, you saucy little meddler!”

“-and after the funeral he’d felt me projecting, well,  _ compassion _ , and he jumped me in the cloak room because he didn’t want pity and we had this unbelievably rough sex that I actually passed out from while he worked out his feelings -”

Sirius stood up suddenly from unfastening the front closure of her bra with his teeth - he’d somehow rucked her blouse up along the way. “Are you alright?” His eyes, boring into hers, were suddenly bright and clear and alert. “Did he cause you any unwanted pain? Do you need healing? Do you need me to stop?”

Hermione drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then absolutely exploded forward to kiss him, sending a lamp crashing to the floor before his back hit the sturdy, built-in bookshelves.

It was at least a minute of her aggression and his gentle response - clearly still intent on answers to his questions - before she mulishly stepped away, brushing a cuff over her wet, swollen lips. 

“ _ Thank you _ . I… I consented broadly if less fully than I’d like… and I  _ do  _ care about him - and I enjoyed much of it - but I think, since he was too controlled to be ad libbing, that someone  _ taught _ him from a perspective of taking and scaring, not consent, safe words, and - well, it’s all in your little red book and I’m sure you know.”

Sirius nodded, his eyes still sharp. “Yes. And if you plan to sleep with him again please make certain that  _ he does too _ first, alright?” 

She just… she looked up at his grave, concerned face and felt something in her just… just uncoil as if it had been waiting to do so for a very, very long time.

“I will,” she promised.

He smiled softly and gave her a peck on the lips. “Good. And you’re alright?”

She nodded. “I think he was trying to scare me away and felt half-awful about it. He was in a very dark place.”

Sirius shook his head. “Don’t care. Doesn’t give him any rights where you’re concerned without you being 100% transparently into it and able to object at any time without fear of real harm, physical or emotional.” He shook his head. "None of us were models of gentlemanly behavior then, and we probably still aren't now, but he had issues with accepting rejection where Lily was concerned in school, too."

Hermione shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t… I don’t want to examine it so much in retrospect that I turn it into something it didn’t feel like at the time. And I  _ would _ have said yes, even though it was more for him than me. Even though I was a  _ bit  _ scared. I  _ could  _ have projected a thought of ‘no’ and I believe he would have stopped. I could have cast any number of wandless spells on him, too.”

Serius looked at her worriedly, biting his lip. It was such a novel look of  _ doubt.  _ And it was… it was entirely on  _ her _ behalf.

She reached up and kissed the lip right where he was biting it, sucking it out from between his teeth and laving it with her tongue. “Thank you for not just raining down Snivellus insults. I know it’s difficult for you, I know you don't like him, but it would have made me feel… well, I expect you know. For what it’s worth, I showed him at least a bit of how to do it better and also hit him rather hard. And I also know - I  _ know _ \- you would never.”

He smiled down at her a little, looking relieved and grateful - and not at all like the great preening peacock she often saw in him. 

She didn’t think her heart could take it. She shook out her shoulders and off the impulse to propose Gretna Green on the spot and damn the consequences. “But now I’ve told you all that, how’s  _ Remus  _ in bed?”

Sirius rolled his eyes, picking her up and wrapping her legs around his hips. “Oh, you know. He’s a dog with a bone.” He took a few steps then paused. “Not that I’ve had the pleasure in a bed  _ as such _ ...”

They both laughed as he carried her to the bedroom.


	31. Black Veils

###  ST. IGNOTUS’ CHAPEL, GODRIC’S HOLLOW - ( _STILL_ ) NOVEMBER 14, 1981

Hermione stood near the back of an incalculable crowd. 

The little church where once she’d heard carols sung had either been temporarily altered for this occasion or had always been bigger on the inside. Stadium-like rows of pews elevated slightly as they streamed back from the apse, and second- and third-tier balconies soared over the nave. 

And it was absolutely packed.

Sirius and Remus, black-clad, were in the front, Sirius holding Harry. To the shock and befuddlement of the ministry officials tasked with turning this from a private into an essentially public service, Sirius had insisted that Peapot and Hilly sit right there, in the family’s area, alongside them. Peapot was holding hands with a standing Henley, who, if the press asked, would be the only Dursley able to come - a truth in a lie.

Of course Petunia and Vernon were not in attendance; they were nowhere to be found. Hermione swallowed her guilt with a reminder that they hadn’t come last time, either.

Dumbledore, though, sat next to Hilly, and from the hand motions they were making, Hermione guessed that, as all waited for the service to begin, they were comparing notes about the knitting of socks. McGonagall was with him, and the Longbottoms, holding Neville, had fought for the right to be there, too - despite the fact they were supposed to be eschewing public places where wizarding folk gathered. Guarding them was Moody, his eye swiveling madly and his face grimly set, and across from him sat Minerva, who also looked watchful. 

They were all very, very far away.

Albus had tactfully waited until Hermione returned to her room earlier this morning to knock and suggest that, while he was very sorry to suggest such a thing at such a difficult time, she might be best served by keeping a low profile. She only felt a little conflicted as she agreed; this was a much nearer and more present grief for others, and she wanted her usefulness to this time to extend as far as it possibly could. 

So she stood alone, watching from the back near the door. Having had access to her entire wardrobe for  _ this  _ day of mourning, including the more sombre and fussy black dress robes she’d bought for occasions like commencement, Hermione was dressed quite conservatively. In addition to her own clothes, she wore a sort of black cloche-like hat, only wider of brim and with a black veil draping down around it on all sides to wrap like a sort of graceful lace scarf at her neck. Her hair, which was always content to stay in any sort of knot, was bound in a chignon at her nape - and completely hidden from view. 

The veiled hat had been handed to her by a slightly reticent, thoughtful Albus. It had been his mother’s. It seemed that, in the last war, veils spelled to conceal their wearers’ identities were common garb for funerals; mothers mourned no matter  _ who  _ their children had become, he’d said, and lovers mourned no matter what their sweethearts’ family members allied themselves to. It was a sort of unspoken agreement that all might attend such rites as these unharrassed and incognito to say their goodbyes. 

After ages of trying to avoid it, having tired of looking over politicians and ministry officials who her darker demons would rather like to push into their own graves sooner than later, and after seeing friends in their parents’ faces, her eyes finally lit on the coffin beside the altar. The politicians were beginning their own speeches and would be followed by Dumbledore - who, she supposed, was a politician, too. She’d rather look than listen to what she’d read again and again - thanks to Bathilda Bagshot, also near the front, her transcribing quill so discreet Hermione wouldn’t have noticed it had she not known it had to be there.

There was only the one coffin - only a little wide - white and lined with scarlet and gold. James and Lily were dressed in white. Hermione realized, remembering the album Hagrid had made Harry, that they were in their wedding clothes. Lily’s head rested on James’ shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. Hermione, for all her curiosity, had never researched magical embalming or preservation magic, but they looked more alive than the only time she’d ever before seen them - they seemed peaceful, happy, asleep.

A small picture of Harry in a gilt frame lay nestled between them. 

Hermione shook with a sob before she even knew it was coming. To her surprise, a black-gloved hand offered her a pure white handkerchief from her right. Mumbling, “thank you,” she accepted it, then maneuvered it up under her veil to wipe her eyes.

When she had gathered herself, she glanced to her side to see that another woman had stepped quietly in beside her. She was immaculately dressed in cashmere more stylish than what Hermione knew where to find, along with expensive but tasteful jewelry, and standing straight and tall though the occasional shudder of weeping went through her, too. 

Her outfit was completed by a wide, lovely, more current take on a very similar veiled hat to Hermione’s own.

Hermione blinked, wondering who she was for a moment before offering the damp hanky back. The stranger waved her aside, her long, narrow hands graceful, her voice low. “Please, keep it. I brought… well, I brought an embarrassing heap of them, really.”

Hermione nodded under her hat. She tuned out Millicent Bagnold, who was asserting the gathered’s “inalienable right to mourn,” and glanced sideways, curious, fumbling a moment before thinking of something to say. 

“Thank you. I… offer my condolences upon your loss,” Hermione offered softly.

The strange woman stiffened a moment and then nodded graciously, pulling another white handkerchief between her hands. “And I mine to you,” she replied, in a similar tone. 

Hermione had waited a polite moment, and then started to look back around, assuming that would be the end of their conversation. 

However, after a long lapse, the other woman whispered with some apparent frustration. “I… I didn’t know them well. I don’t even know if I’ve any right to be here.”

Hermione, looking at the correct but trembling carriage of the stranger, then tapped silently at the surface of her veil. “We all have the right to mourn.”

The stranger sighed, her hat bobbing as she glanced down and then back up again. “Yes. Yes, I suppose. No one… no one should have to die so young. No little boy,” she said, her voice cracking over the final word, “should be left bereft of his family at so tender and innocent an age.”

Hermione blinked, then turned to half face this curious woman. Impulsively, she took the stranger’s hand and held it firmly in her own, ungloved fingers. “No. No little boy should. And that little boy is marked, now. No one will ever let him be just a little boy again - no one who knows what happened.”

The woman shuddered, squeezing Hermione’s hand back after a moment’s hesitation as her other hand dashed under her veil with a kerchief. “It isn’t  _ fair _ . The young shouldn’t be marked by choices that they cannot possibly understand. By schemes they cannot possibly be fully cognizant of.” 

Hermione peered at the impenetrable veil, then put her arm around the other woman, who readily returned the gesture, leaving them standing side by side, each with an arm slung around the other’s lower back. 

The woman’s perfume was lovely and distantly familiar, distracting Hermione a moment, though she would hardly ask its name under the circumstances.

Dumbledore stood and the woman shuddered, her knees threatening to go out from under her as his sonorous voice swept over the crowd. Startled, Hermione grasped the woman firmly about the waist and half-walked, half-carried her the few steps to sit in the last (and only empty) row of pews and pulling her into them with her. After they were seated, she reached over the now shaking woman’s knees to pull her feet from where others might trip over them in the aisle and, after a moment’s hesitation, pulled the woman into her arms, letting the stranger weep on her shoulder.

“I’m… sorry…” she said through gasps and hiccups. “So sorry… I’ve never… but my son…  _ my son _ , the same age…”

Hermione felt the cold place inside her that remembered Harry’s death - and the moments when she’d thought it final, and pulled the woman closer. “Sssssh. There, now. I know. It was evil, what happened. It was evil, and we must fight to ensure it never happens again. We must fight to keep your son, Harry Potter, and  _ all _ our children safe from the senseless, stupid hatred and murder that, if we do nothing, will continue to rip through our people, again and again.”

The woman cried harder, and dampness soaked through her veil until it just kissed Hermione’s neck.

_ “And it is in light of these truths,” _ she distantly heard Albus say,  _ “these shortcomings that we have suffered to fester too long, taking these and countless other bright young heroes like them from us, that I announce, in their honor, some changes coming to Hogwarts this year…”  _

Hermione vaguely registered an aberration in Dumbledore’s speech as she’d known it, but was too concerned about the veiled woman, whose cheek had slipped to lie pillowed on the softness of Hermione’s breast, to listen attentively.  _ Who is she? Dear Godric, how can I  _ help  _ her?  _ she thought, casting about for possibilities. 

She wondered if it could be… well, she’d seen the photos, and Molly Weasley had once cut such a figure as this woman’s, and from her Prewett days, might even once have had so rich a wardrobe, with some remnants remaining still. Could this be her once-mother-in-law, on the verge of falling weeping in her lap? The Weasley family was nowhere in visible attendance - she’d have found them impossible to miss. And that seemed  _ odd _ .

She leaned her forehead against her free hand. Good gracious, this was… maybe coming had been a mistake. 

And then, she  _ saw  _ it. 

The woman’s hand, when next it came out from under her veil, clutching a newer handkerchief, was draped with a fine lariat of platinum - a single long, straight, white-blonde hair.

_ Holy shit _ , Hermione thought, her arm loosening and then tightening around Narcissa Malfoy as her mind reeled.  _ Merlin’s mistress in Aberdeen, this is… fuck, this is  _ mad _. _

But she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. 

Dumbledore was still speaking, she ascertained quickly - and had a ways yet to go. Even the ushers were standing further forward than where she and her unlikely companion sat, in the very, very back, where the first of the mourners to dot the increasingly congested landscape after them was a row up and well into the other side. 

She took a deep breath, tensing, her hand mechanically stroking the frightened woman’s back. 

And then, she pulled Narcissa up and threw her own veil over  _ both _ their hats. 

Narcissa gasped in shock, then gulped back a sob. “But… why…?”

Hermione shook her head grimly, putting a finger over her mouth. “We need to talk. Quickly, before someone sees.” She took in a deep breath, bracing herself. “Narcissa, I know you.”

The other woman, who had been swaying with her breath, stilled, though a shiver still disturbed her arrested form. “I… I cannot think you know who I-”

Hermione shook her head more fervently. “I  _ know _ you, and I care about Draco, and I will  _ help  _ you. I am with the Order. Please,” Hermione said, her gaze darting aside as the organ played. “Dammit, his remarks were meant to be longer, but he changed some things I didn’t know about.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Narcissa crept her veil up to reveal red, swollen,  _ enormous  _ grey eyes. 

Hermione blinked, a bit taken aback. She hadn’t realized, having met this woman, still strikingly beautiful in her middle years, that she had in fact aged rather  _ badly _ . 

“Em,” she said, shaking it off. “Look, I will find you. Look for me. My name is Hermione. I will come to you and I will help you,  _ and  _ Draco. I… I don’t know if Lucius can be saved. But Harry and every other child who stands to be in peril if Voldemort-”

Narcissa cried out softly, putting a hand over Hermione’s mouth, which Hermione impatiently brushed aside. 

“-if  _ Voldemort _ , who  _ cannot _ hear you now, comes back into power.” Hermione examined the pale, perfect face. She wondered a bit bitterly what it would have been like, never to have had an awkward phase. “Narcissa, this will be dangerous for you, but I know - I  _ know _ you are  _ brave _ . You don’t remember it, and I can’t explain, but you saved … you saved  _ everything,  _ once, for the love of your son, myself included. I know you have it in you to defy the darkness that threatens us right now. And I … I know you love Lucius, but I know  _ you  _ know he’s a damned arrogant fool who will lead you into ruin, too.”

Narcissa, when shocked, didn’t look arrogant at all. She looked angelic and lost and so,  _ so  _ afraid. Hermione just looked at her a moment, letting her words settle. 

“I…  _ how?  _ The manor is guarded, by the Ministry  _ and _ the Death Eaters! How? Even the owls, searched. He throws money everywhere but I know my… my husband  _ will _ be arrested, even if he  _ can _ explain away his actions under the public eye.” Narcissa frantically gathered both Hermione’s hands in her own, forgetting the kerchief and letting her tears fall freely, looking at a Mudblood as if she were salvation. “I’m not allowed to leave - an  _ elf _ helped me, but he’ll be punished, and I can’t… I  _ can’t  _ do this twice, I just couldn’t  _ stand _ that house any more, I …”

Hermione thought, difficult as it was under such an imploring, desperate gaze. She finally had to pull her eyes aside to focus. “You… how’s he getting the bribes out?”

Narcissa’s lip curled - yes, that was the Lady Malfoy Hermione recognized. But it was turned inward, now, somehow, self-mocking. “Lucius has…  _ social _ occasions. He uses them to grease wheels, he says. Invites people those guarding don’t dare search. To… keep people in power and people with power  _ happy _ . The Dark Lord was once a perennial guest of honor.” She laughed, quiet but half hysterical. “Half of them even think he’ll come to  _ this  _ one, prove all his detractors wrong.”

Hermione thought rapidly, then made a disgusted face. “What, the awful pureblood sex parties I’ve heard of? Those?”

Narcissa looked down, fidgeting her fingers. “Lucius has been saying he can have his pick of  _ anyone _ to entertain him, to welcome him back, if he comes.” She looked ashamed.

Hermione shook her head. They were giving instructions for how to exit, now. There was no time. “Narcissa, are  _ all  _ the Death Eaters invited?”

Narcissa blinked. “Well, yes, I think so. Not all have come, since Samhain… he’s planning something extreme, something decadent to try to lure them, but it’s because… it’s because  _ some  _ think some duplicity on Lucius’s part was involved in the Dark Lord’s fall, or his confidante’s, -”

“-Severus Snape?” Hermione cut the other woman off grimly.

Her answer was a halting nod. 

Hermione shook her head. “I will figure out a way in. And it wasn’t duplicity. It was a prophecy. Some of them already know about it, regardless of what terror they may be trying to sow.”

Narcissa radiated fear and doubt and dawning hope up at her. Hermione realized uncomfortably that at some point, she’d become the taller of the two.

“Yes,” she said, breathless. “I … I can wait for that. I’m sorry - I… I wouldn’t wish going to this travesty on  _ any  _ woman, but… but surely we can find a way…”

Hermione shrugged. “Don’t let it be next weekend - that’s all I ask.”

Narcissa thought. “I think it’s Friday - is Friday..?”

Hermione nodded. “Yes. That will do.” 

Narcissa jumped as an older wizard slipped by, regarding their strange huddle curiously and attempting, it seemed, to beat the departing crowd. “Oh! Salazar, it’s over! I… I…” She looked at Hermione, frantic and pale, and then, after her eyes darted to one side then the other, threw her arms around the brunette’s neck and kissed her soundly on both cheeks. 

Hermione blinked as she pulled back, stunned. 

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Narcissa breathed, then darted out from under Hermione’s veil and ran out the door. 


	32. An Order of Pain

###  HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Hermione managed to pull all the necessary parties back to Hogwarts, either before or instead of attending the reception planned in the Ministry Atrium. 

Dumbledore stood looking at his new Order Sickle, seeming to marvel at it. “Well, Hermione, as much as I enjoy seeing everyone’s Patronuses, I must say, this is brilliant. I feel quite the idiot, not having thought of it myself.” 

Hermione laughed at how cheerful he sounded to pronounce himself such. “Aren’t you still working on the uses of dragon blood? I think you have some other things competing for your attention.”

Dumbledore tapped the side of his nose, grinning. “Of course you knew that! Do I determine them all?”

Hermione raised an eyebrow. “Cleaned your oven lately?”

His eyes widened and he spun on the spot in delight. “Oh, but you are a delight, Professor Granger.”

She treated him to a wilting look. “Next week. Not a professor until  _ next _ week.”

He nodded, winking. “Of course.”

Sirius handed Harry to Remus and stepped up to them. “Are we ready to begin? I don’t want to run afoul of his Nibs’ naptime, and I think that if I don’t show my face at the reception with him, there may be talk.”

Hermione smiled at him, taking in everything from the cravat she’d tied around his neck to the little milk stain on his lapel. Shaking her head, she summoned a vial of dragon blood nonchalantly from the headmaster’s desk and stepped close to dab a tiny amount on it as she spoke. “Yes - em, everyone, don’t want to take too much of your time -”

The smaller conversations around the room quieted and everyone came to stand around the table. Moody was there holding Neville - and trying to teach him to say “constant vigilance,” evidently - beside Alice and Frank. Severus, too, in addition to the Marauders, herself, and Dumbledore.

Hermione started, though she was still concentrating on saturating the stain, her wand held just above it, as she handed the vial back to Albus blindly behind her back. “I’d only meant this to be a one-point conversation, so let’s start with that, shall we? Alice and Frank have an anniversary next weekend -” 

There was a small chorus of awws and congratulations as Severus rolled his eyes and scowled. He’d had to sit behind the “family,” among the Hogwarts faculty, and she could only imagine how it must have rankled to be lesser at the funeral of the woman who had been the most important in his world. 

And how otherwise his heart must roil, forced to spend a day embroiled in the deaths he’d been complicit in.

But she shook those thoughts away. “Yes, and I have a special, and indeed rather  _ romantic  _ weekend planned for them, during which the room of hidden things and all the other incarnations behind the same door will be closed to other use, so plan accordingly.” Several of the others shrugged or looked perplexed. Apparently not  _ everyone _ used that room all the time like she and her friends had.

“Anyway,” she continued, “Frank’s told this to Alice, now, though I’m still sorry it spoiled a more spectacular reveal, but he’s opening a house for them and Neville just outside Hogsmeade. It is my strong suspicion - especially given the vagueness of detail about exactly when they were found and tortured - that it was in the course of this time when they were found, in my timeline, and captured by the four extremely dangerous Death Eaters we have yet to flush out. Therefore,” she said, glancing around, “Not because Alice and Frank are any less competent than any of us - they’re damned fine aurors, and that’s from Mad Eye himself...”

“Psssh, you said you wouldn’t repeat that - there’ll be no living with them!” Alastor interrupted, red as an apple as Frank grinned and Alice looked like she might cry.

Hermione nodded, then shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a wicked witch. Anyhow!” She glanced around. “I think that we need to send imposters in to follow their itinerary, under Polyjuice or, if possible, something better. And I think it’s important that whoever go be experienced in withstanding torture.”

The joy and frivolity immediately drained from the room. After a moment, Dumbledore cleared his throat. “My dear, what you ask is not something most alive and whole have been able to endure - it could be difficult -”

“-I’ll do it,” said Severus.

“-I can,” said Sirius.

And “-You’ll want me,” murmured Remus. 

All at the same time.

Dumbledore looked at each of them closely in turn, the habitual mirth falling from his eyes, and suddenly looked every inch at least 500 years of age. “You know,” he said quietly, “I suspect you’re each right.”

Hermione frowned. She knew, or could guess, mostly, but… it  _ hurt _ . 

She gathered her words, though, and tried to go on, forgetting Sirius’s lapel a moment. “Em… I… I can, too. And I think I rather ought, because I’d have an easier time playing Alice and, well, might notice something one of you might not.”

Remus blinked. “Hermione, you…? But…”

Hermione smiled weakly, pulling back her left sleeve to show her jagged scar. The Longbottoms gasped and Moody looked like he needed someone to curse. Severus, looking overwhelmed by the revelation of any expanse of her skin, looked away. Remus’s face fell. 

“Hermione,” he said, “Look, Sirius and I can do it, you needn’t put yourself in the way of any more harm, and I-”

“-Remus, I need to,” she said, only realizing as she said it that it was true. “The person who did this to me... who used the Cruciatus Curse on me… she’s one of the ones who will be there. I want closure. I want to see the cycle break. And I know things about them that they don’t yet even know about themselves. It might help. It’s not worth risking  _ not _ sending me.”

Remus clenched and unclenched his jaw, stepping forward before Sirius could quite get a word out. Harry, innocent of many words but sensitive to the tension of the room, began to fuss in the werewolf’s arms. “I want to come. You’ll not find anyone better able to endure pain than someone who’s spent most of his life transforming into a monster each month. I’m your man, Hermione. Not… not to diminish what others have suffered, but this is something that I can do that would give some meaning to the senseless violence a maniac inflicted on my life, and I would appreciate the chance.”

Hermione gnawed on the inside of her lip, looking on with worry. Sirius was silent, eyes downcast as he lifted Harry from his friend’s arms, touching his shoulder for a long moment before he stepped back again. 

Severus just looked… angry.

Hermione sighed. “Alright. Severus, I think your cover isn’t worth risking, anyway, and Sirius, I …” 

_ reckless grin, falling through a black curtain blown by an unknown wind _

She had to work to keep her knees steady as she recognized the same eyes he’d had dying in his face now. “Em, sorry, I… I think you might have trouble keeping a level head around your sadistic cousin Bella.”

He blinked, suddenly more eager to displace Remus. “Hermione, I don’t think...”

Dumbledore interjected, this time. “The lady has spoken, and I believe her judgement to be sound. Let us help them to prepare.” He quieted a moment as various levels of dissatisfaction and misgiving fizzed around the room. “And I might have a better trick, Remus and Hermione, than Polyjuice for you. You’d need to keep it on you, but you couldn’t spill it, and it wouldn’t need to be reapplied.

Hermione nodded. “I’d be grateful - and I think we should talk more soon. I know Frank was planning to ask you, Albus, and you, Alastor, to ward the new house ahead of time anyhow - perhaps while you’re there you could think of some other helpful things that might be done to lay the trap. But if that’s all…” She glanced around, picking out the people she needed from the crowd. “There’s one other matter, and I believe I only need Severus, Albus, and Sirius to discuss it. Alastor?” She asked, taking Harry from Sirius and dropping a kiss on his nose before walking over to the legendary Auror. “Would you please bring Harry to the reception? I know he’ll be safe in your hands - and he is, whatever posturing I might do, the key to Riddle’s destruction.”

Harry reached out his tiny fingers and touched Moody’s cheek just below his whizzing eye while the Auror stood still, surprised to have been asked. When the bright blue orb zinged around to fix on Harry, the child laughed, clapping his hands. “Pretty!” he exclaimed.

Alastor now looked like  _ he _ might cry, but he reached out to take Harry. “Of course I will. Little champion. No harm in this world will dare touch him when he’s in  _ these _ arms.”

Hermione nodded, kissing Alastor’s scarred cheek. “I know. Thank you.”

And then all but the four of them filed through the Floo.

Hermione, when the four of them were alone, looked up. “So. Who should sit next to me, today at the funeral, sobbing as if the world might end, but Narcissa Malfoy…”


	33. No Return

###  NOVEMBER 15, 1981 - GRANTOWN-ON-SPEY, SCOTLAND

Hermione sat on the enormous, beautiful old porch overlooking the wood-edged meadow behind her parents’ house. She watched Harry toddle into the tall grass while Sirius loudly and theatrically lamented his inability to find him a few feet away, making a show of looking in one direction then another before melodramatically throwing himself down into the wildflowers on his back in defeat.

Her mother quietly placed a steaming cup of tea in front of her and sat down across the table, similarly taking in the sight with a reverent little smile, shaking her head as she picked up her husband’s hand in hers. “Thank you for bringing the boys back to us, and for keeping them out of the melee as we packed up. Goodness; it seemed like only yesterday that we just had Hermione to mind. I still can’t entirely wrap my mind around these two little imps we were blessed with in her wake.”

Hermione smiled softly into her teacup as she took a sip.  _ Perfect; Mother’s tea is always _ perfect, she thought. What she said was, “Oh, I think as you reacclimate to each other and the house it’ll all be sorted again. 

They all watched, her parents chuckling, as first Harry, then Henley, then… then  _ Hermione _ threw themselves at Sirius, knees and elbows landing on his stomach and perilously near his nose as they shrieked in delight to swamp the scuttled adult and make him their next mountain to climb. Little Hermione was wielding a stick - already very careful to keep the point away from poking anyone, but waving it about like a sword and fighting off imaginary Habsburgs and Prussians, for all she still had trouble pronouncing either. Though her memory hadn’t been modified, she took to having two younger children to boss around like a duck in water. 

Hermione fumbled up a handkerchief and daubed at her eyes, drawing a little cluck from her mum, who reached over and grasped her shoulder reassuringly. “Oh, then, don’t be like that. You’ll see them all again soon.”

Her dad nodded. “Though how you persuaded us to give you the kids for Christmas I may  _ never _ know.”

Hermione shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought you were due a little rest and relaxation, especially since you’ve got so much to build here. And… I’m not too sad, really. It’s just so different, seeing them all together, here. Do you think they’ll like it? After London?”

She looked between her parents with some real anxiety, hoping for their reassurance. They continued to just… radiate it. She could swear she felt the pinging of their souls off hers in some unassailable harmony, some order that refused to be suborned that made them turn their chairs toward her just so, cut the crusts off hastily thrown-together cucumber sandwiches for her but not themselves. 

Her dad took a long sip and thought. The Grangers…  _ Garniers _ … were never put off by taking time to think in conversation. “I think it may be perfect. Hermione was upset she wouldn’t get to learn swordplay at the place around the way, but I’m sure we’ll find something here. And… well, just look at them. I don’t know if children are meant to be too much indoors, but mark my word,  _ she’ll  _ be up a tree, but she’ll be there with a book.” He took another long sip, looking at Sirius howl in mock anguish and then crawl into the grass in pursuit of the scattering toddlers. “I think Henley will be more one for sport, but I don’t know yet about Harry. There’s something… old-souled about him, for all his spontaneity, isn’t there?”

Hermione concentrated on spreading lemon curd on her scone, unwilling to let her mind ramble about  _ that _ . “Em, I think he’ll be very bright, and very good. I think he’s got the makings of a real hero. I do hope you keep finding good opportunities to volunteer up here. I know Hermione gets impatient sometimes, but I think such a thing - especially something helping people - would be good for the boys especially.

Her mum nodded thoughtfully. “I concur.” She glanced mischievously at her husband, and then at her erstwhile daughter. “So tell me, Hermione the elder, when are you going to take that wisdom of yours and that fine young man there and have some children of your own? Not that there’s a hurry - we were, what, almost 15 years older when we started! But I’m very eager to meet the little scallywags.”

Hermione felt her face burning through to the shells of her ears as her dad grinned and looked at her just as curiously. “Oh, believe me, I’ll take  _ your  _ future entertainment into all due consideration in planning  _ my  _ marriage and eventual childbearing,  _ Mum, Dad…”  _ she joked. 

(But not really.)

Henry (her dad) shook his head, looking out at Sirius fondly. “Well, when you get to it, I think you’ll have a good partner for it. We can hardly keep up - been thinking of getting a dog to run them weary, now we’re here. Something tells me, young man like that, your kids will have all the play they could ever want. Your only trouble will be getting  _ any _ of them to stop for supper and bedtime.”

Rose (her mother) thwapped Henry chiddingly (but not hard) on the shoulder, causing him to curl away from her in mock affront. “You know better, you. That man’s more than capable of… well… living right up to his name when need be. Hermione, love, we really couldn’t be happier for you.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed, gazing off at the antics in the field, as she sipped. “Yes. Yes. You’re not at all wrong. If we weren’t so young, well.” She looked back at Rose and Henry, shrugging with a sheepish smile. “I don’t know. I think a long engagement is right for us now, though. We’ve only just started. We’ll see what the next couple years bring. I hate to rush into things - but I have to say I’ve seldom been more grateful for anything than I have been for Sirius since I met him.”

Rose shrugged, affecting regal magnanimity. “As long as we get godchildren of our very own eventually, we  _ suppose _ you may enjoy your twenties. A little.” 

Hermione scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She couldn’t help a little smirk as her eyes drifted back to the children and Sirius. Remus, Severus, Albus, and Arabella were all sitting at a picnic table out under an enormous old oak, apparently being either lectured or told some highly energetic story by Alastor. They’d all rushed about, seeing to the setup of the boys’ rooms, all this morning - and also sat around talking about some specific touchstone memories to plant that would go off when each Rose and Henry first opened a certain cabinet, say, or touched a certain shelf. Hermione had no idea how they’d have done it without Arabella’s imagination - she’d been quite taken with the boys and had a way of picturing things that had never happened that ended up forming the backbone of most of what they ultimately left. 

Now, everyone sat, guzzling water, eating, and enjoying the bright late afternoon sun. Everyone, at least, but Sirius and the children.

Then, just as Alastor was miming something that actually looked rather like a swordfight, little Hermione lunged at Alastor out of the long grass, grabbing onto his calf with a roar. 

Remus and Severus were standing in a flash, each reaching into a pocket or a sleeve, but to the elder Hermione’s great surprise, Moody howled like an aggrieved pirate before reaching down to swing the little girl up and around, laughing and saying she’d gotten him good. 

“I like that eye!” Hermione heard her precociously verbal tiny self say. “Why it hide?”

Moody roared with laughter, even as the elder Hermione tensed and the younger men looked at each other in shock. “Because it’s magic, that’s why, you little scamp! Can’t be showing off my magic eye to just anyone, now, can I?”

They both laughed and went off to hunt for Sirius and the boys, lecture or story forgotten as Remus and Severus sat down. Albus reached over to pat Severus’s arm companionably and seemed to take up the mantle of old man storyteller easily in the Auror’s wake. 

Hermione took a breath she hadn’t realized she’d held, looking back at her folks with a smile. Her father and mother were squinting, though, and looking a little concerned.

At some point, the others had decided Hermione’s resemblance to her family was too striking to be ignored and planted it that she was a cousin. Now, looking at Rose and Henry - and she was already sort of beginning to accept them by those names, though it grieved her - she was glad to have an extra ounce of familiarity.

“Are you… worried about something? With Hermione?” she asked cautiously.

Her parents seemed to shake themselves free of a mutual sort of reverie, their smiles a little forced as they looked back at her. “Sometimes… well, it’s just old family superstition, really,” her mother said. “But sometimes we wonder if she has access to a whole world we can’t begin to understand, you know? I suppose maybe being a parent is  _ always _ like that. But… how can you hope to guide your child into a life you know you can hardly begin to comprehend? What if everything’s so different for her that nothing we can give her, teach her, arm her with will be relevant to it.”

Hermione blinked, picking up her mother’s strawberry-patterned cup. She couldn’t remember a time when there’d been a full set instead of just one of them, hadn’t known there ever had been, until today. Had she broken them all in some fit of accidental magic? Had she scared them?

She thought of plots and schemes she’d painstakingly concocted these last two weeks, of the French cousins the Longbottoms would be, of all the neat, subtle things she’d worked out. Of the International Statute of Secrecy… and of these  _ people,  _ not much older than herself, that she was already asking a lot of, had foisted a lot on, trying to do their best with changes she’d chosen for them. Of how unutterably much, how irrevocably she loved and was grateful for them. And she felt a bit of recklessness coming on.

“Well…” she started, putting down her cup. “What if I told you I knew, without a doubt, that everything you will do as parents will help them? Not that you’ll be perfect - but that you’ll be better than good, that you’ll make a tremendous positive impact, create a place of safety from which they can spread their wings? That you’ll teach them good habits and support their little idiosyncrasies even when they don’t align with your own, take them hiking and to other countries to vacation - that you’ll always put them first and they’ll realize it and be... and be just so unutterably grateful, one day?”

She glanced up. They were both looking at her a little curiously. 

After a moment, though, Henry gave a little snort. “If you happen to have such an assurance sitting around, yeah, we’d take that.”

Hermione smiled, shrugging slightly as she extended her hand over the wilted rose floating in a bowl in the middle of the table. “I may, yeah. And also this.”

When she pulled her hand back, the rose looked new - a trick she’d learned that made her a bit sleepy, about six months ago, from a wood nymph in her Department of Mysteries project. Her mother, who seemed to put together what had happened more quickly, gasped - but her eyes were wide with delight rather than fear. 

Hermione was  _ so  _ exceptionally relieved to see it, and let it show in her eyes.

After a moment, she said. “Trying to divine the future is a losing battle - I can’t tell you exactly how your lives will unfold, and neither could anyone else. But let’s just say I have a strong, evidence-based theory that you’re going to be bloody  _ brilliant _ . And,” she paused, briefly making eye contact with each of them, her dad now blinking in something suspiciously like awe. “Should something beyond your ken come along, please just know you’re not alone, and not without help. I… wouldn’t talk about it widely. But send a letter my way, and I’ll be here quick as I can, or I’ll call - alright? I’ll try to get you a number where you can reach me, too.”

Her mother seized her hand, giving it a firm squeeze. “Bless you, Hermione. And thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of book 3. When we meet again, it will be under a bit of a new heading.


	34. BOOK 4

# Book 4: Old School, New Intrigues


	35. Back to School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to a time in the books where people will begin to settle into post-war life and new routines. This probably means that, a few chapters in, more days will be glossed over more quickly as time passes. But not yet!

###  NOVEMBER 18, 1981 - MRS. PUDDYFOOT’S, HOGSMEADE

“Have you thought about introducing some of the theory to students younger? I mean, I wish I’d been able to improvise spells earlier - never have an owl handy when I need opera glasses but I transfigure loads now, and I understand how all the rote spells work better now I have a sort of intuitive grasp.”

Minerva glanced at Hermione over the teapot she was pouring from, just inside of the shop front windows. “Hermione, you are welcome to teach however you feel will be most efficacious, and when I can stop jumping at loud noises and finding reasons to hyperventilate at the transformation of a hat, I’ll pick up from where you left off. But I wonder if perhaps the intuitive grasp you developed was not in large part derived from the great quantity of rote spells you initially learned. If you want my advice, I wouldn’t overestimate the ability of an average third year to grasp the abstract.”

Hermione shrugged, glad at least that this difference in opinion felt considerably more like the ones she was accustomed to occasionally having with her old mentor than most in this timeline. “I’ll think of it. Maybe I could have an experimental class, if the students and parents signed on, that could go through a slightly modified curriculum - we could compare their OWL scores, see what seems to work best.”

Minerva shrugged. “If you have the energy to save the world and develop better pedagogy, goodness knows I’ll not stand in your way. I encourage you to get the hang of things as they have been  _ first _ , though. I suspect you’ll already have a great deal on your plate, even with Alice signing on later in the year.”

Hermione smiled a little at that. If all went well, as soon as the Death Eaters still at large and plotting the torture of the Longbottoms were apprehended, Alice would come on to the newly re-formed Transfiguration Department. Minerva was still serving as director in absentia - she’d held the title for ages, but since it had been so long since the school had had more than one teacher per subject, it hadn’t meant much until recently.

But as Hermione considered that, she frowned. “Alice is definitely capable, and it’s all very neat, but maybe a sentient magical creature with a talent for transfiguring would be in better alignment with our goals. I’m sure Alice fits somewhere, but are we just taking the path of least resistance?”

Minerva rolled her eyes. “Tell me, Hermione, does that little boy, Neville, grow up a little on the short side, only to one day come out beguiling and charming, with a devilish bit of a twinkle in his eye?”

Hermione sat back, blinking. “What?”

Minerva smirked into the distance, her face knowing and atypically catlike, for all that part of her usually stayed within its fur. “Leprechaun blood, Hermione. A few generations back, and fairly unnoticeable on the ladies of the bloodline, but Alice has it. I knew her father, you see. And if there’s a magical creature that knows transfiguration, it’s those blasted little beggars. They pass that it on quite strong, too.”

Hermione knit her brow. “Neville didn’t seem to. He was terrified of everything but Herbology, for the longest time.”

“If you’d given him another couple years, I suspect you might have been surprised. And I’m sure the family knows it. Maybe they’ll talk about it, if your scheme to build tolerance from education out works.” Minerva started to gather up her books, parcelling out several stacks of notes to Hermione. “It’s dreadfully common. If you don’t think the Blacks and Malfoys have mixed with Veela, you haven’t got eyes. I suspect you  _ know _ about our Filius’ goblin heritage - and don’t get me started on some of the other families. Our prejudices invite scrutiny to which virtually no entrenched magical family could hold up. Sometimes I think Muggleborns are all that keeps us mostly human - and I’m not the first to think it, either,” she trailed off, looking at Hermione curiously. 

“Anyway,” she continued, after a pause. “Elphinstone’s baking for tonight, and I’ve promised I’ll help, so I’m away. But we have more to discuss - tomorrow, perhaps?”

Hermione nodded, happy to be finding her new professional feet - and the rhythm she so counted on with her once and perhaps future friend. “If for any reason I can’t, I’ll owl you.”

The two women parted ways, leaving Hermione to pick up the tab - it was her turn - and wander home, to the castle.

❧

As Hermione approached the gate, though, who but Severus should appear emerging from the leafless trees with a basket over one arm and a foraging knife in his other hand. 


	36. Truth, Beauty; Beauty, Truth

Despite the pretext - and a rather full haul or Wiggentree bark, nettles, and fragrant wild ginger root - Severus had clearly been lying in wait, within view of the path Hermione would have to take to return to the castle. She wondered if Minerva had told him they’d be meeting - and even if she might be sympathetic to his cause.

Well. They’d probably have had to talk today, anyway. She had been avoiding being caught alone with him - and Remus, for that matter - this entire week so far. 

She’d even managed to deflect several somehow less-perilous overtures from Sirius, who felt like safety but smiled like some Fae prince from story, tempting her off to dance and feast in his kingdom under a hill. She watched from across the room the other day as he’d taken a slow bite of an apple. At the time, their new colleague, Healer Burbage, had wandered to a mid-sentence halt in the course of trying to set up a checkup for him, clearly unable to tear her eyes away from the juice threatening to drip from his full lower lip. And he’d  _ intended  _ that. Hermione knew she was only a single careless step away from waking up 100 years later, wondering where her ambitions had gone, all her memories solely of him.

But. Well.  _ One  _ of them had finally snared her.

“Severus,” she said with a rather brusque nod (despite the fact that he looked so… in his element here, but without all the misery, somehow).

“Ms. Granger,” he said, falling into step beside her. 

She sighed and stopped, turning to him. “Ms. Granger, again? Really?”

He stopped too, and when he turned, looked down at her with such uncharacteristic uncertainty - so foreign on his face - that she had an instant of fear his features would float off in the pale pool of his visage and rearrange themselves like a Picasso, so little did they cohere without a more familiar expression. 

But then he spoke. “What I did… I…”

He stalled a long moment, looking down at his feet.

Hermione crossed her arms, waiting. “Yes, Severus?”

“It was wrong!” he exploded. It wasn’t that he yelled, it was that he intoned such anguish. That his shoulders fell, and his hands fitfully raked through his hair in frustration. “I’m no better than where I’ve come from, no better than I’ve ever been. I thought… I thought I’d learned so much, but I lashed out at you so ruinously worse than I  _ ever  _ did at Lily, because you left yourself so  _ open _ to me, which I should have... which I  _ do _ value more than words could possibly ever hope to say. I cannot,  _ cannot _ tell you how very sorry and ashamed I am. I would never… I would never importune you again, never assume  _ any  _ intimacy, only... if we’re to attend this  _ blasted  _ party together, I  _ must _ owl my reply  _ today _ , with the number and names in my party - and it is also exceedingly late to see the event’s obligatory tailor, in London.”

She had a persistent sense, after that outburst, that he should be panting, but instead he stood so very quiet and still. How much of his life, she wondered, had been spent hiding?

She sighed. “Severus, I gave you my forgiveness, and more. Have you forgotten?”

He blanched, which she would not have thought possible. “I will never, ever forget, Ms. Granger. Should I live to see three hundred, I will not, but I… I cannot fail to apologize further. We must work together, for the Order and for Hogwarts, and I must know if and how I can atone, how I can  _ show you  _ how deeply and sincerely sorry I am.”

She looked at him a moment before she spoke. “Start by calling me Hermione, you idiot. Let’s go.”

❧

###  KNOCKTURN ALLEY, LONDON

Severus hesitated a moment before he offered her his arm. They had landed just inside the Knockturn Alley. She looked around as she reached to take it, her eyes lingering on the display windows of Borgin and Burkes. Then she paused to quickly spell all her clothing black and started rummaging in her pocket. “Wait a moment. You want me to look the part, I should probably… ah!”

Hermione grabbed an improbably large mirror from her pocket, charmed it to the alley wall, then summoned her seldom-used cosmetics kit from the same bottomless well, unzipping the pencil pouch she’d assembled it in and rummaging through. “So Severus. What manner of date does one typically bring to this sort of event?”

He wrinkled his nose, looking aside evasively.  _ “Not _ one like  _ you _ .”

She huffed in exasperation. “Alright, well. Wives?”

He shook his head, now-immaculate hair a shining curtain. “Paramours. Trophies. Submissives. More... exotic humanoid creatures. Attractive, ambitious teenagers willing to sacrifice much to reach the halls of power.” He made a moue of distaste. “Too many young Slytherins who may be of age but haven’t sat their NEWTs yet. Hired companions of a certain lofty class. Occasionally, a very exquisitely beautiful Muggle, usually under the Imperius Curse. And - mostly but not only ladies.” 

Hermione made a face as she pulled out her mascara. “My face will be known soon, but no one will remember me as a classmate. Dumbledore had thought I should feign having been taught by private tutors if I had to, but attempt to remain closed to questions.”

Severus looked thoughtful. “A young heiress from a family of inflated self-importance might adopt a false name for a time of rummaging about to see what society had to offer and go a bit feral for a time after the untimely demise of her guardians. To have no known house affiliation could make you a subject of interest. Also, while some families privately educate their heirs still, they are predominantly eccentric Irish druids or inbred and paranoid, typically line-of-succession royals in obscurity who have inherited the gift. You could be elusive about which you were. You don’t sound Irish, but you don’t look or act inbred. It might… intrigue.”

“So a cloistered little pureblood girl with some unusual claim to power on her Rumspringa. Hmmm.” Hermione thought a moment, adding a second, exorbitant layer to her eyelashes, then started to unbutton her top several buttons . 

Severus appeared to be concentrating on his composure, but he sounded slightly winded when he replied. “I’m not certain… dear goodness, that’s… that’s very  _ red _ .”

She liked him with a flush.

Hermione blotted her lipstick then liberally lined her eyes in black before applying shimmering metallic gold shadow to her lids and letting her hair down, bending over to flip it over her head and ruck it up into a wild, tousled mane. “I’ll be fine. I will need, however, to think of what to do to cover my arm. Is whoever this tailor is discreet?”

Severus snorted. “He spends his time, between enforcing costuming themes for events like this, designing imaginative lingerie for purebloods and their conquests. Were he not, he’d be dead.”

She glanced at him as she tucked mirror and makeup away, satisfied. “Seen some interesting lingerie, Severus?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes. “This is not the first of these events I have been to, nor will it be the first… unusual social circumstance my decisions have forced me into.”

She stepped into the space he was gazing off into as she tucked her bag away, waving cheerily to some passing hags. “Yes, well, we’ll try to continue your reclamation from unloving sexual depravity at some later point, but for now I’m done. How do I look?”

He looked at her, his cheeks reddening slightly. “I … I don’t like seeing you like this.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “How do I look, Severus?”

He looked at his feet, then up at her. “Like you  _ hunger.  _ Like them.”

She looked at him for a long moment, until he started almost involuntarily to lean toward her, then snarled and snapped her teeth at him before he could get too near.

He looked down, turning away as if to leave, and she grabbed him by the elbow, sighing and feeling like a raging jackass. “That was... a bad joke. Forgive me. Let’s go?”

He shook his head. “You do not understand. If I bring you, we will be expected… that is, it will be required, as a test of your…” he trailed off.

Hermione sighed. “Severus, I have a notion of what may be expected. We may need to spend some time… becoming reacquainted under less dramatic circumstances to establish some ground rules in the time we have between now and Friday evening. During which time you will exhibit perfect obedience to my every whim and superb listening skills,” she said, some steel ringing in her last few words. 

He looked at her with wariness and some degree of shock. “Surely you don’t mean-”

“-I do. To rip the plaster off. Because if we can’t alone we can’t in company. And because that’s not the memory I want of you.” She shrugged, then started walking toward the mouth of the alley. “And because… look, d’you think it’s any easier for me, typically, to establish a witty dialogue with a new acquaintance than it is for you? ”

He followed her slowly. “I… cannot believe that this could possibly be alright with you. Surely you don’t have to come, I can tell... “

She shook her head decisively, silencing him. “ _ No. _ I don’t know what I might see that could be of use, can’t begin to tell you what to look for, and she’s expecting me and will  _ not  _ trust  _ you _ . I don’t think the Malfoys will be having many more of these parties in any event, soon - Lucius is going to have to keep a lower profile and pretend to fly among the angels for a long, long time. My going ensures the best outcome. And…” She shivered slightly, fingering her last fastened button. “Look, I’m cold. Let’s just go?”

Severus offered his arm again, but how he held it and his gait were both somehow detached, mechanical, as they stepped out into Diagon Alley. “If I had not seen your blood I’d think it ice.”

Hermione let her eyes drift closed as she walked. She didn’t speak for a moment. “It’s not. And that’s… what do you suppose you make people think runs in  _ your _ veins?”

He rubbed at his eyes. “I can’t sodding do this, Hermione. I don’t even deserve to touch you.”

She opened her eyes and studied him a long moment as they walked. “If you don’t want to touch me, I would never make you. I’m sorry if my … my determination to Gryffindor through all has crossed a line.”

Severus gritted his teeth, speaking fast and low, his fists clenching. “Hermione, of  _ course _ I want to touch you. I’m  _ roiling  _ with it. And with how, so quickly, I could feel so much. With whether  _ anything  _ I ever felt toward Lily could have been real if I could so quickly and completely fall face first into this abyss of…  _ you _ . Ever since you barged through propriety and into my damned shower you’ve held me by my neck over a cliff’s edge. I think… I think half of what drove me the other night was some misbegotten attempt at self-defense because what I feel for you? It  _ terrifies  _ me.”

Hermione looked at him, her eyes troubled, for several long, silent seconds, before she smiled softly, shaking her head. “I have never, ever heard you speak so many words unless you were raking little Gryffindors over the coals, telling them how hopelessly obtuse they were in the face of the mystic art and science of potion making.”

He looked up at her, a little wounded. She clucked, darting forward to give him a peck on the lips, then rubbing the red of her lipstick away from his mouth with a few swipes of her thumb while he goggled at her. “I will manage to find the key to the vault that holds whatever I feel for you, and I will tell you what it contains when I know - but not in the street, not before this erand is done. We have work to do - then maybe some takeaway, and only  _ then _ the rest - if we’re even still conscious.”

❧

###  TWILFIT AND TATTINGS, DIAGON ALLEY, LONDON

Hermione glanced around, curious but doing her level best to affect both boredom and the ability to buy anything up to and including the shop and the people in it if she wanted. She’d never set foot into Twilfitt and Tattings before - much less the less-known special stocks.

She looked at an animated mannequin wearing something gauzy and rather feline, complete with jeweled collar and twitching tail that…  _ Huh. Must be harder to clean with all that fur attached,  _ she thought.  _ I wonder if it detaches... _

Her thoughts were interrupted by a softly cleared throat.

She looked down to the source. It was only her second time meeting a dwarf. The first had been when Lockhart -  _ lord but I need to add him to my list, too _ \- had shoved one into a cupid costume and sent it about Hogwarts distributing valentines her second year. This one was quite different - and did not look so hard up he’d be peddling his services so cheap anytime soon.

The dwarf was handsome and broadly muscled, and dressed simply but richly - and also, rather thematically. He looked a bit like a rakish corsair of old, with a white shirt that billowed but also hinted at muscles beneath, complete with frothing cuffs and a neckline that bared an expansive V of bulging pectorals. His black suede trousers disappeared into knee-high black kid boots. His beard and mustache were short and neat, his eyes deep blue, and his hair golden, long, and lustrous. The torque that adorned his neck was two inches thick (and pure gold if she was any judge), and the top of his head was level with her bra line.

Which he seemed to appreciate for a moment before he glanced up at Snape. “Have you developed good taste, lad? About time someone did.” He shook his head. “My dear lady, thank you for making this ordeal less dreary. You may call me Baca.”

❧

Crystal flute of champagne in hand, Hermione surveyed the mannequins arrayed in the various options for guests of the party. Minor changes were permitted, of course, but a pervasive theme of Greek antiquity, though with miniskirts and the option of one exposed breast, was somewhat oppressive in its… unimaginative indecency.

Baca sensed her distaste and stepped away from Severus, who had simply muttered he’d defer to the tailor’s judgement after curling his lip at the various togas arrayed for men. 

“I can see the feisty one is displeased. I would be disappointed were she not. Perhaps you can imbue this Lucius Malfoy with some aesthetic discernment. I am bound, alas, to labor to his specifications.”

Hermione glanced at him sidewise. “The theme I discern. I wonder, however, if I might persuade you to make some alterations in my case, to make things… interesting.” She turned to face him, gesturing at the options in a desultory fashion. “The fact is that  _ I _ am not and never will be  _ cheap _ . These are. Don’t protest -” she said, cutting off his imminent interjection. “I understand that these were likely the lowest common denominators of tens of more interesting possibilities you unsuccessfully put forward. I wonder, though,  _ especially _ in light of the fact that this will be my debut into local Wizarding society, you might be amenable to a slight deviation - fully reimbursed, of course - for my dear Sevy and I. You can naturally also produce us costumes to the host’s specifications - and donate them to a needy  _ brothel _ , if it pleases you. Consider what I propose a custom order with a tight deadline.”

She knew she had him.  _ Merlin, Sirius is rubbing off on me _ , she thought, slowly biting into a strawberry before demurely sipping her champagne, watching Baca struggle with his warring ambitions. She did not think she was rousing his ardor per se - just showing him that she could show his true talents to good and conspicuous advantage. 

Still, he made a show of hesitating before he spoke. “The lady presents a most… compelling argument.”

❧

###  HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY

Hermione had ducked into the WC in the little curry place to vanish the makeup from her face, but she could never quite get  _ all _ the mascara to go. She shrugged, liking it better in its half-life anyway, and washed her hands before rejoining Severus outside - delighted to see he held a steaming bag redolent with searing spices under his scowl.

He held out his arm, again, and she took it, walking with him into the dark alley beside the restaurant as something seemed to bubble in him, just underneath speech. 

He Apparated them into a fire with a twist, causing her to gasp as he gritted out “Snape at Hogwarts” and dusted powder over them, sending them spinning through to his quarters. She tripped, but he caught her, helping her to his solitary chair before he conjured another one and set about clearing books off the small table.

She looked up at him. “Got something to say to me?”

He looked down his nose at her with scorn. “ _ Sevy _ ?”

She pulled the half-bottle of champagne Baca had insisted she take from her pocket, trying valiantly not to laugh as she also pulled out two pilfered flutes. 

His eyes widened before narrowing again in indictment. “Theft.  _ Seduction _ . What exactly have I gotten myself into? Is any inch of you genuine, or who I took you to be?”

She focused on pouring the champagne. “I committed to the role. I… am surprised to say I found it rather fun.”

He snorted and threw himself down into his chair, spelling table settings into place and thrusting her vindaloo at her. “I thought you were going to be going home with that blasted tailor.”

Hermione heaped rice and chicken onto her plate, shaking her head at Severus’s mild chana masala. “Jealous, are you?”

He glared at her as he moodily chewed his first bite, only speaking after he swallowed. “Exquisitely.”

Her eyebrows quirked up. “Honest, at least.”

He glowered around his naan. 

She ate thoughtfully for several quiet moments, watching the furiousness with which he chewed, studying his downcast eyes. “Severus, I’m still working on making myself mine again. I can’t be yours. No more than I can be Sirius’s or Remus’s.”

His head shot up, his eyes fiery despite their black. “Then it’s true. You’re …  _ bedding  _ them both.”

She shook her head. “I have slept with Sirius, and Remus has made his interest known.”

He put his fork down and just looked at her. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or in despair, and she doubted he could, either.

She sighed. “I am being honest and I’m not being coy. I don’t want to hurt you. I… care about you.”

He shook his head, standing up and pacing the room once before leaning in its doorway. “I do not understand you.”

She massaged the bridge of her nose and thought. “You don’t. Do you need to?”

He darted a glance back at her, folding his arms before answering quietly. “I  _ want _ to.”

She shrugged. “It comes with a high probability of getting less than you think you want right now and an ironclad obligation to communicate thoroughly and well if things turn passionate again.”

“ _ Anything _ ,” he breathed, taking a step toward her around the table. 

She shook her head emphatically. “No. Don’t you  _ anything _ me, Severus Sebastien Snape! I do not consent to abetting you in your meteoric descent into some crater from which you can’t or do not plan to emerge. A resilient man who knows his own worth - and mine - I have time for. One who also wishes to find some love for himself rather than burying himself under unworthy pining for another.”

He took a step back. “I don’t know how,” he said softly.

She shrugged. “You think  _ I  _ do? Do you at least  _ want _ to?”

He ran his palm down his face, looking tired. “Yes.”

She swept her gaze over his half-defeated posture. “Would you like me to stay with you, tonight?”

His eyes leapt to hers. “ _ Yes.” _

“Good,” she said, kicking her shoes off under the table and shrugging out of her cardigan.

He stepped back involuntarily as she stood and she paused, looking at him. “It’s warm in here. Is this alright?”

He nodded warily. She sighed and approached him slowly. “Severus, I’m going to be wearing less on Friday.”

He nodded again, his eyes closing. 

She stopped right in front of him. “I’d like you to open your eyes. Will you do that please, and look at me?”

He did. He looked at her… like an ache that lodged in her own heart.

She bit her lip. “I was going to sit with you and interrogate you about a book, but now… if it is really alright with you, I think I’m going to hold you. I’d like to touch you. Does that sound alright?”

His chest began to heave with deep, quick breaths, but he nodded faintly. 

She watched him a moment. “Are you panicking?”

“Not,” he said, “unusually.”

She pulled him into a hug, standing on her toes on the toes of his shoes and putting her arms around his neck. “I won’t hurt you.”

His breath came faster, even as his arms, hesitantly, settled around her waist.

She breathed the herbal scent of his hair and the ginger and turmeric that had melted into the general scent of him, holding him and waiting until his breath began to slow, his arms relaxing into something more… comfortable. She felt the moment his neck untensed, his nose settling with a long inhalation amid her hair.

Only then did she speak. “Severus, have you had a passionate encounter that  _ wasn’t _ violent or coercive, ever?”

His breath hitched. “In the bath, with you, was close. And… one other time, maybe.” He was quiet a long moment before he added. “The first.”

She nodded into his shoulder, moulding herself incrementally more closely to him. “Tell me about it?”

He drew in a deep breath, his shoulders sagging. “I… there was a stream in the woods near where the old mill used to be, and I sat there sometimes, even after… after everything had gone wrong with Lily. She didn’t even come home most of the summers, anymore. I was there, one night and… well. I was surprised, we hadn’t spoken in years, and never kindly, but there she was. I was… I was  _ sixteen _ , and lonely, trying to determine if I could or should ignore the overtures of the Death Eaters, and she was determined and she just... pulled off her dress. There was nothing under it. I’d never seen… well.”

He took another long breath before continuing. “She undid my pants and pushed me back, then she lay down with me and kissed me, and pulled me on top of her.  _ Into  _ her. I’d barely gotten my hands around the handfuls of her breasts before I came. I still didn’t believe it was really happening.

“But then…” He hesitated, shifting his weight between his feet. “She started dressing again, pulling the leaves from her hair, and telling me things. How that was sorted, then, how I’d sort everything out and she’d transfer to finish at Hogwarts with me, and we’d live in some… fairy castle with our brood of magical babies and never want for a thing.”

Hermione blinked into the front of his robes, tensing slightly. “You lost your virginity to  _ Petunia Evans? _ ”

He nodded weakly. “I didn’t mean to. It just, happened. She was so angry when I told her I couldn’t change how magical she was, that no one  _ could _ . I was too shocked to even be unkind about it, which… I might have been otherwise. I was an ass then, and I know it, now.”

She looked up at him, finding his eyes. “Severus, that was definitely still coercive.”

He blinked down at her. “...oh.”

She nodded gently. “May I undress you? And myself? I promise not to make you live in a fairy castle with any sort of brood. I would like to touch you because I want to bring you pleasure, and to please myself, and I want us to be able to heal. Is that alright?”

“Yes,” he nodded then looked at her, clearly marshalling words for a long moment before he spoke again. “I’d even… I’d even consider the fairy castle, for you.” he said. Then, his palm settling lightly on her stomach. “Even the brood.”

She shuddered - she didn’t know if she’d  _ ever  _ want kids (she  _ wanted  _ to want them, but the world would have to be different, and so would she, first). She did not intend to be impregnated. But there was an intimacy in what he’d said, somehow, that moved her. “Let’s… not count on that, shall we?”

She looked up at him and he was looking down at her. 

“May I kiss you?” he asked, quietly.

She nodded, glad he was learning. “You may.”

His lips pressed hers like a hesitant question. She pressed his back with a firm  _ yes _ , opening her mouth under his to draw him in. 

A little whine unspooled in the back of his throat as his tongue dipped into her, twinging with her own. His arms tightened around her, pulling her flush against him and grabbing fistfuls of her shirt at her waist as his tongue skimmed the fronts of her teeth. Then, moaning into her mouth, he tasted deeper again, lifting her up and sitting her on the table as he did, plates and glasses pushed to the floor with little clinks and larger shatters.

They were both panting when they finally disengaged their mouths with several lingering pecks, looking at each other. Her eyes were drawn down to the most insistent evidence of his interest, a jutting swell distending the front of his trousers. Then, she looked back up to met his gaze. “ _ You _ can undress me, if you’d like.”

He nodded, dragging her shirt over her head and gasping softly at the sight of her in her white lace bra. His hands hovered at her sides as she sat looking at him, her arms still up where her sleeves had dragged them, over her head. She smiled. “There’s a catch in the front, between my breasts. Do you see it?”

He glanced down then back to her eyes. She slowly lowered her hands and undid it herself, slowly, so he could see. Then, she fastened it again and picked up his hands, pulling them to it. “Now you try.”

He fumbled twice, then undid the latch. Slowly, he peeled the fabric from her skin and let the straps fall down her shoulders and off, over her arms, as he beheld her. She waited, patient, as his hands lifted, but he stopped short. “May I touch you?” he asked, his voice deep and soft.

She nodded. “Well done.”

She sat back, planting the heels of her hands on the table behind her as his cupped palms came up beneath her breasts, lifting then gently grasping, fondling them, rough thumbs skimming lightly over the tips of her nipples. 

She shuddered and arched her back, pressing into his touch. Slowly, he grasped her more firmly, kneading at her, taking one of her tight pink buds between thumb and forefinger and lightly pinching. She tossed her head back with a moan, thrusting her chest toward him and exposing the length of her neck. His breath seemed to drag in and out of him as he grasped her more tightly still, his eyes darting back up to hers. “And… may I kiss you?”

She nodded, her lips parted and eyes half-closed. A shiver shot through him as he bent to lick around the circumference of one quivering mound, spiraling inward until his lips closed over the pinnacle, his tongue spiraling still, as it had done within her mouth before it withdrew for a slow, hard suck.

She cried out, her hands slipping where they braced behind her as she fisted them.

He attended equally to her other side, eyes darting to meet hers, which were looking down at him as he worked. Eyes still locked, he kissed up her neck until he found her mouth with his again, his hands closing on her hips, pulling her to the table’s edge to bring her closer to him. 

As they kissed, chaos and fire seeping in where hesitation and wariness had started, she moved her hands down rows of buttons, freeing him of robes, then undoing his shirt and finally the placket of his trousers before she pulled back, breathless. “Take them off for me?” she asked, voice abrading the word  _ off _ with a whine of impatience. 

His eyes didn’t leave hers as he pulled off his shirt, then let his trousers fall from his hips and kicked them aside, pausing also to toe off his socks. 

Her glance darted down to his pants. “Those, too.”

He obeyed, then stood before her quivering and naked in the cool subterranean air. 

She bit her lip as her eyes smoothed down over him, caressing every curve, every angle, every scar with their attention. He stood under her scrutiny, watching her pupils dilate, her teeth worrying her lower lip. She wore only her own knee-length skirt - and knickers, he presumed - now. 

“Would you like me with my skirt on, or off?” she seemed to purr, pushing him backward and hopping down from the table to fish a moment under the skirt, letting her knickers drop to her ankles then stepping out of them, toward him.

His breath went ragged, his erect length twitching, attentive to her voice and the pictures it painted. “May I take it off you?” he breathed.

She turned, showing him the button and zip down the back.

He pulled her toward him gently by the waistband, shuddering as the weave of the wool brushed the sensitive tip of him, then hooked a finger over the garment’s edge, using the other hand to slip button through button hole then slowly drag the zipper down. He let go, letting it fall and pool around her feet.

He didn’t move but his fingers lingered at the very terminus of her back, infinitesimally stroking the skin beneath where the button had been as his gaze sank lower.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, catching him at it. “Would you like to look at me, Severus?”

“Yes,” he rasped, looking up at her eyes hungrily. 

After a moment, she nodded, then turned and picked up his hand, tugging him toward and then through the bedroom door. Where she paused, surprised.

“You’ve a new bed,” she said, taking in the less ornate posts, the lighter finish, the more neutral, gray curtains.

Behind her, he hovered in the doorway, hesitant. “I… burned the last.”

She looked back at him, turning. “Would you like to look at me in it?”

He stumbled as if weak at the knees but then swept her up, lifting her by her hips again and tossing her gently onto it. “Sweet Circe, yes,” he murmured, crawling up after her as she lay down on her back. “I may touch, as I look - may I kiss you?”

She considered a moment, then nodded.

He picked up her hand and started with the tip of every finger.

❧

By the time he reached her left forearm, he was lying on his side, facing her as she lay on hers. He gasped in horror, tears forming in his eyes as he realized there was a word carved there, then back to her face. She shrugged, and he held her gaze a long moment before kissing every letter, the salt of his tears drying white on her skin. “I will brew something to rid you of this if it is the last thing I do,” he whispered against her wrist, eyes flicking to meet hers again. 

She smiled down at him wearily. “I hadn’t realized you hadn’t noticed it said that. Don’t promise anything. It was a cursed silver knife. Something Bellatrix had.”

Fury darkened his expression, but he fought it down with a sharp shake of his head, then bent to kiss the inside of her elbow lingeringly, the tips of his fingers gentle as they held her arm up to his mouth from below.

Hermione stretched through a full-body shiver, which he added to a meticulous set of mental notes that seemed now to eclipse all others, before moving on.

❧

It seemed to take either moments or centuries, but at length, he had explored and tasted everything inch of her, down to the outer curves of her hips and up from her toes to the middles of her inner thighs, where he paused, looking up at her. “May I continue?” he asked, gazing up at her from where her thigh hitched over his shoulder, his lips brushing her skin as he spoke.

Squirming slightly in anticipation, she nodded, and he smoothed his hands up the outsides of her hips as he bent to kiss up the inside of first one, then the other of her thighs, watching her eyes as he went. Then, after a pause, he swept his hands under her buttocks shuddering as his fingers encompassed each and gentle squeezed. 

The wanton little mewl, the roll of her hips made his eyes flutter closed, and he had to pause to gather himself before he could proceed with the control he needed to show her he was capable of. 

“And… here?” he asked, his breath warm on her center but his lips not touching - yet.

She nodded, angling herself up to meet him and rolling her shoulder blades down into the coverlet. 

He bent to part her lower lips with a long, slow lick, moaning into her as the taste of her dissolved across his tongue, and then repeating, delving deeper, then again. He felt her tight threshold and, looking up to her eyes pushed into her. Her eyes screwed tightly shut and she grabbed fistfuls of the blanket, breathing, “Yes.”

He lingered a moment, plumbing her to the depth he could, then swept forward, his lips closing on a small, pulsing swell. Above, Hermione slammed her fists down onto the mattress, drawing her lower lip between her teeth. 

He drew her between his teeth and she squeaked, “gently!” - so he replaced teeth with lips and lapped at her, then sucked, then lapped again, settling ultimately into a rhythm that set her trembling all over, her thighs vibrating where they rested over his neck. “More… pressure…” she gritted out - and he obeyed, sucking harder, pushing down on her with every lick until she started to almost  _ sing _ an enduring, high note, which lowered, loudened until her hips suddenly jerked in his grasp and she cried out - in ecstasy unmarred by pain, her back arching convulsively, her hips thrusting against his persistent mouth as he saw her through until she limpened, shuddering, and brought her hands down to tangle them in his hair, her eyes sloe and fathomless. 

He crawled up the length of her and fell on his side beside her, watching her watch him, seeing her eyes traipse over the wet mess of his mouth and chin and looking around for something to wipe it with.

When she rolled to kiss him and licked him clean, he groaned. “Oh, gods and demons,  _ Hermione _ ,” his voice tore, before again closing his lips over hers.

They tangled thus a long moment, his body taut and hers relaxed, replete, before she pulled back slightly. “Now, shall I look at you?” she asked, brushing her fingertips over his. 

His eyes widened as something lower than his gut wrenched and jerked at the mental image of her looking at him with her lips pressed to  _ his _ inner thigh, and he adamantly shook his head. “I think I’d die. Not now. Not yet. I… I need…” he licked his lips, searching her face. 

She smiled, startling him by hitching her thigh around his hip. “If not that... would you like to slake that throbbing thing you’ve been enduring inside me?”

Shuddering, he nodded. She draped her arms around his neck. “Then do. In any position you like, within reason. How would you like me?”

He took a moment to marshall his ability to speak. “On top of you. Your legs… around me. Kissing you.”

She smiled. “I would like that.”

When he rolled onto her between her thighs, she brought her legs up around his hips, hooking her ankles together as he reached down to touch her, find her, then guide himself to her. His eyes flickered to hers for confirmation that this was still what she wanted, needing to know that she did, terrified of transgressing, disbelieving a little, still, that she could want  _ this _ , want  _ him. _

She nodded slightly and he let himself sink, slow, into the silken wet heat of her with a jagged moan. Her own in answer trailed into a whimper. When he pulled back, he looked down at her, still unable to believe this was happening. “Yes,” she whispered, and he thrust forward again.

And then… with his every thrust, she just started telling him.

“Yes… yes, Severus, oh, Merlin,  _ yes _ , please, mm, Severus, yes,  _ Godric _ , yes, like that, now harder, Severus, fuck me  _ hard!  _ Yes! Yes!  _ Yes!” _

He was dimly aware of his own inarticulate roar in response as he slammed into her, the embrace of her legs slipping over his ass with each thrust in the slick of  _ her _ and sweat, then they tightened, her legs beginning to shake again, and he slammed into her harder, reaching down between them to circle his fingertips around the same throbbing bud, and then... 

“Severus!” she screamed, arching up into him convulsively as she clenched around his pistoning cock, burying himself in her again, then again, and again, as he lost all rhythm and just madly dashed himself upon rocks that were her like the ocean trying to reclaim the land, until while she still  _ writhed  _ under,  _ pulsed  _ around him, he lifted his head and screamed feeling his climax burn through him as he poured into her, feeling as if his soul feld into her while his toes pushed against the footboard until she had to push down from the headboard to keep from being dashed into it, still crying “yes, Severus, yes!”

And when he was empty but somehow also full, every muscle just gave out, and he fell on her, slipping over their commingled sweat on her skin, burrowing his face into the joint between her shoulder and neck and shuddering, shivering through what felt a thousand years of sweet ending, bathed in himself frothing in the liquid crux of her, the most sacred potion he might ever stir.

Her arms flopped languorous around him as she bent her head to kiss his brow. 

It was a long time before he could move. He never wanted his softening cock to slip out of her.

But eventually, he lifted himself on his elbows over her, looking down to search for regrets, for pain, because it couldn’t possibly have  _ been _ like that, it was too… it was too  _ right _ for anything to do with him.

But when she blinked her sleepy eyes open and looked at him, the warmth of her smile just  _ undid  _ him. He kissed her then and she met him in it, sated and happy… in  _ his _ bed.

And then her eyes fluttered closed and she pulled him back to rest his head on her shoulder as she fell asleep, with him still held within.


	37. False Dichotomy

### NOVEMBER 19, 1981

Hermione, who had no idea how she’d turned out to be that guy who sneaks around from bed to bed at night, was glad she knew where all the secret passages were. Including the ones Dumbledore had jovially told her about which lead to the hall where she lived branching off the Head’s Tower. There were three - and the one from the dungeons was actually a sort of elevator… if you could deal with the ghoul who often inhabited it.

Even she was nowhere to be seen this very, very early morning, though. 

She’d left Severus a note, of course. She reread what she’d written again in her head as she leaned into the rickety little car’s corner, rubbing her temples. She really, really _had_ enjoyed last night. But it always felt as if one wrong word, one cause for doubt, and everything would tumble down around Severus. He was good, and it was good to find and draw that goodness out of him and try to help him see it, to bask in it with him, to enjoy him at his best - which she had to admit was very, very enjoyable indeed. But it was exhausting - _exhausting_ \- to constantly feel like his equanimity could topple off the knife’s edge if she made a wrong step. She knew she couldn’t change anyone, especially him - but she wanted him, cared for him, and wanted to open a door through which he could see that he could change _himself_ , or even just realize all the good that was already there within him.

“I must be positively mad,” she told a spider peering at her from its web in the far corner conversationally. “Here’s hoping following one’s heart isn’t a positively _stupid_ thing to have learned from Harry.”

The spider peered at her a long moment, then continued to test the strands of its fortress.

She sighed and waited for the door to open.

❧

When she slid shut the concealed door between the elevator and the hall, Hermione let out a long sigh. Then, she took off her jacket, fishing the beaded bag from the inner pocket, and trundled toward the promise of _her_ bed. 

She was looking forward to seeing her bed. Just hers. For _sleeping_. 

Only when she approached the deep doorway…

_“Remus?!”_ she squeaked, incredulous.

For sitting against her closed door, looking tired with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, was none other than Mr. Moony himself.

He looked up at her wanly, his eyes dull and … more mournful hound than wolf. 

She sputtered and then drew herself up. Well, drew herself up while continuing to sputter. 

“This… my… what are you doing here?!” she got out.

His eyes closed slowly, sadly, as he took a breath. “Ah. Well. Sorry. I’d come to talk to you - I know we need to, before the weekend - and thought I’d just… wait. I shouldn’t have camped out. I didn’t know you were planning to be out late, and then when it became clear that you were, I was torn between worry and what Sirius informs me is my stubborn tendency to mope, and I found it hard to move. But… you seem alright, this time. And…” he did sniff more deeply, now, “...and you seem not to have had to be bathed, daubed, and dosed with myriad healing potions, and not to have been fearful or full of adrenaline. I just… well, I knew you weren’t with Sirius, and I knew I _shouldn’t_ go looking for Severus, because the last time made me very afraid to think what the wolf might do if you… you were… were _together_ again.”

She stood still a moment and then took a step toward him. He shrank back, scooting a little farther onto the arch. “Em. I do still think we should talk, but it would be much, much easier for me - and I’m very, very sorry to have to ask - if you could do the thing with all the soaps and perfumes and such first.” 

When he blinked at her, his mien still hunched and unthreatening and sad, she could see that he was nonetheless fighting back yellow flecks as they surfaced in his eyes.

She stepped back again, and he visibly relaxed. She sighed. “I didn’t realize you’d known the other day. Or even about Sirius, really.”

He furrowed a single brow at her as if he were mildly disappointed she wasn’t cleverer than that. 

She canted her head in exasperation at him as if to say _you can lecture me about being clever when you stop prodding boundaries you’ve no right to, you puffy-tailed sulker._

He immediately looked chastened, like a dog bopped on the nose.

She said, “Yeah, I know boundaries aren’t really a fluffy puppy thing. Thanks for never _actually_ prodding your nose anywhere inappropriate, I suppose.”

The yellow rose in his eyes, and the wolf looked out as if to say, _oh, but I will, someday._

She threw up her hands and shoed him, slow and reluctant out of her path before she skirted around him as widely as possible, leaving her door open as she crossed her rooms to the bathroom to turn the tap on in the tub. She poured half a bottle of lemon bath salts in, then, tapping her foot and thinking, summoned her relatively fresh stash of wolfsbane from where it hung drying behind her desk and chucked it in, too.

“Ooof,” she heard, the murmur muffled and coming from her study.

She paused in taking off her shirt and shrugged before speaking at her normal volume, knowing he’d be able to hear her over the loud tumult of falling water. “Look, you’re the one who doesn’t want to smell sex on me.”

There was a conspicuous silence, which she noticed only about five seconds in, preoccupied with continuing to undress. Naked and suddenly suspicious, she rolled her eyes. “Other people sex,” she clarified.

“...Sex with Sirius isn’t _awful_ ,” he mumbled glumly. 

She shook her head. “You had your chance with him.”

Suddenly he sounded closer - in the bedroom. “Yes, well, it’s been pointed out to me repeatedly that I’m a bit of an idiot.” 

She had just put a foot into the tub, wishing she’d used bubbles. The water was, but for the floating sprigs of wolfsbane, quite clear. Nonetheless, in she went.

“Remus. I know I implicitly invited you in to talk, but… oh. Well. Oh dear.”

A beautifully-boned face peeked at her around the door frame.

Glumness was gone. Remus’s eyes had gone from mostly green to green-tinged yellow as he stepped in from the side and stretched to his full height, arms reaching above his head in the doorway. Then he slouched in it, hanging off the carved stone lintel as his purer and purer golden gaze licked over her. “I’m also not a fluffy puppy,” he smirked, meeting her eyes again.

She crossed her arms over her chest and pulled up her knees, crossing her ankles. “No, actually, you’re a bit of an ass.”

He shrugged, clearly unphased. “Only when sufficiently motivated to put my fluffier side in his cage.”

“That’s a shame,” she retorted. “He’s the one I’d like to _pet._ ”

The smirk deepened into a wolfish grin. He didn’t even have to say he knew she was lying.

“I meant that,” she groused, slumping against the back of the tub mutinously. 

Remus shrugged. “Not… entirely,” he allowed, taking a step forward and then another.

She gulped as he knelt beside the tub, looking at her from too close with those unsettling eyes.

So quickly she almost couldn’t track the moment, he reached across her to grab her flannel from its hook, then her bottle of body wash, which he started to pour on the cloth. She realized he must have dragged the flannel through the water, wetting it, only because it dripped and there was a small ripple in the water.

“Do you know, Hermione, that wolves can go weeks without eating? Before they _gorge_ ?” he asked lightly before he gestured to ask if she’d give him her arm. And, for some reason, leaving the other firmly in place across her breasts, she _did._

He started with each of her fingertips, lathering them gently, before working down. Belatedly remembering his question, she shook her head. She had the irrepressible sense that looking away, showing fear, or flinching would be a very bad idea. 

“That wolves can hear sounds from up to ten miles away in the open?” he asked, lingering over the inside of her elbow. She realized with a mix of awe and horror that he was following exactly where Severus had kissed her. And then she shook her head as he rolled up his sleeves and lifted up her other arm, the tainted water turning his skin a stinging pink - though he registered no discomfort. 

She forgot to cover herself again. 

Several minutes later, as he finished gently conditioning her hair he continued “Wolves can also smell what they desire from almost two miles away.” 

_He pulled the correct unlabeled bottles of shampoo and conditioner_ , she thought with a strange sense of detachment, _and left them in for precisely the correct duration._

He continued to work silently, gently, dispassionately even as his arms reddened while he gently cleansed her back, then her stomach and her breasts. 

Then he lifted the first of her feet from the water. “They can survive very cold temperatures, wolves. Long past water has turned to ice.”

She nodded slowly, watching him. “That I did know.”

He nodded to acknowledge it as he pulled her leg straight up, loitering over the back of her knee. Then, the other leg. “Wolves are very patient.”

The cloth followed his hand down, caressing the insides of her thighs - where he stopped, looking at her eyes. “The puppy learns these things to understand the wolf. He tells them to me - to himself.”

She didn’t speak, but he continued to look at her, his arm still and submerged. When she realized he was waiting for something, she blinked, and when her eyes opened again, he was right in front of her, his lips brushing hers as he spoke, their noses pressed together. “And do you know something else, Hermione?”

She shook her head microscopically, her nose rubbing against his. 

He smiled against her lips. “The puppy - whatever lies he tells himself - _is_ me. There is no magic line dividing us, as in your poor, marked child, and any boundary he pretends is fruitlessly constructed. And he, _I_ … am _not_ a simple _animal_. Not even a noble one. Not even a wolf.”

And then he was gone so fast she couldn’t see it happen - but he let her hear him moving through her bedroom. “It’s my _turn_ , woman, and you want me. No commitment runs athwart us. I will take nothing from you - I am no savage and my heart is rooted deep - but I also will not wait forever. This is the last time I will border on trespass to rouse you from your reticence. Come to me when you have dressed, and however I apologize, understand that it will not be because I have not told you the _truth_.”


	38. Addressing the Wolf in the Room

Hermione knocked on Remus’ door around 5:30 AM - about an hour and a half later. Her hair was still damp, but any ceremony there ever may have been to stand on seemed moot at this point. 

She heard a rather tired sounding “It’s open” from within and entered.

His head was pillowed on his arms, which were folded on a tidy blotter on his desk. His entirely green eyes looked up at her from over his blistered-but-already-healing forearms, but otherwise he stayed put. 

She sat sideways in one of the upholstered armchairs across from him, her back against one armrest and her legs over the other, looking at him.

There was silence for a long moment.

“So,” she eventually said. “I take it you were reading psychology at Oxford to learn more about Dissociative Identity Disorder?”

He blinked, lifting his head a couple inches. “Huh. That’s a much better name than Multiple Personality Disorder. Is that what we’ll call it?”

She nodded. He shrugged. “Seemed worth a try.”

She nodded more enthusiastically, smiling slightly. “Absolutely. It was a stroke of unusual brilliance to look outside magical medicine, and I think one that was on to something potentially helpful. But have you also spoken to a mind healer?”

He slumped back down, despondent. “How could I? Not even allowed in St. Mungo’s under current law. And Britain and Ireland are unusually lenient with my kind, as such things go.”

She looked up at the ceiling, tracing with marvel the smooth curves that made the vault. “Yes, well. You weren’t wrong that I wanted one here for  _ you _ .”

He sat up.

She didn’t, letting the gold recede in his eyes as she continued to focus her attention on the stone above her. “You should know that it’s possible for you to cope with your warring impulses better, but that I think in my future, you mostly did that by restricting the wolf, or whatever you call it, until it lost its voice and only emerged during a potionless change, overridden by the frenzy of the hunt. And I think that did violence to you -  _ all  _ of you. Sapped your courage, your verve, in ways I don’t think were natural. Made you less bestial than man is meant to be. Robbed the color from your cheeks and the roll from your gait.”

He cocked his head. “Well, that sounds just  _ delightful _ ,” he grumbled sarcastically.

She nodded, swinging her legs around to the floor and sitting up. “And dangerous, too. That the wolf is a lot of where you keep your will to survive and your ability to react to danger. You definitely lost access to your capabilities as a demi-being, which I’ve never seen you use unless you’re in that sort of blended, ferocious state you fall into when the wolf’s awake. It doesn’t surface much, if  _ at all _ , in my time.”

He studied her. She studied him back.

Eventually she broke the silence. “I didn’t realize it was strange until I started to work more with the werewolf community. Especially the kids. They’re uninhibited - zip around all over everything, having great fun. Don’t draw the lines adults mostly constrained themselves within as a polite fiction, a way to integrate without standing out. Have more conscious control over eye color but around the full moon. But I’ve seen you duel, Remus, and you were  _ brilliant _ , but no more so than any other exceptionally capable wizard. You’d beaten parts of yourself entirely into submission. Or… well. I think someone else did, when you were still a child yourself. Which tracks, doesn’t it, with what you know about the Muggle psychological ailment?”

He frowned. He didn’t need to speak. She  _ knew  _ what his father had been like. And 4 year olds enjoy learning how fast they can run, as a rule.

She swallowed before she continued, her voice growing smaller. “But at any rate, under the thrall of  _ that _ solution... you  _ died _ . And I was the one who found you.”

He went perfectly still. 

“It was in the final battle.” she closed her eyes and tried to describe it without picturing it, not wanting to flash back again. “Your … your partner died, too. Also brilliant, but clumsy. Back to back with you. You both had so much to live for. And it was wrong. It should  _ never _ have happened. It was a gratuitous cruelty in an already heartrending history. It was… a blow to the tender heart of young  _ Hermione Granger _ ,” she said, her tone bitter over her own name, “who… had  _ long  _ been very fond of you.” 

She heard him shift in his seat - so, so slightly - but she heard it.

She opened her eyes to look at him. “Did you know I was helping to raise your son? He was mine, every-other weekend.”

Remus sat back, stunned. “I… something about you smelled like mine.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, well. Your life is worth fighting for, and one of the reasons I hope mine is more than illusory, here, is to help you win that fight. So will you come to see Charity with me?”

He started to speak, then hesitated, searching for words. “Hermione, it’s not just something that I can, overnight, muster the -”

“-What if I give you a little puppy treat? Will you cut the Prufrocking and introspection and come with me, then?” she cut him off.

He blinked, as if trying to figure out if he’d been insulted. “What, you brought me chocolate or something? That’s not only a little demeaning, it’s hardly commensurate to the enormity of -”

In an instant, she was crouching in front of him on his desk, standing on his previously tidy blotter, the twist of her booted toes ripping the paper. Her eyes were glowing gold as she looked down into his.

He reeled back in shock and horror, the back of his chair colliding with his own built-in bookshelves. She stayed still and watched him.

“Sirius,” she finally remarked, “has the most remarkable little book. Whoever wrote it was so encyclopedic in their approach to collecting any spell that might be of interest for a particular goal that they gave absolutely no consideration whatsoever to what else the spells within might be used for. It might actually be the most dangerous book I’ve ever known - save one. And  _ you _ , Remus, shedded on my doorstep while you sat there and fumed and pined and worried all night. The hair of a werewolf was the last component necessary for a potion to gain one’s traits for an hour - keyed to the appropriate moon cycle.”

He blinked up at her. “I’ve heard of that spell. That’s blood magic!”

She shrugged, lifting her hair behind her ear to reveal a tiny pink scratch along her hairline. “It’s a very small scar, and with your healing, the cut’s already knit up nicely.”

He looked up at her as if he couldn’t decide whether he was shocked, revolted, or amazed - but she heard his heart quickening, and could smell both fear and…  _ joy _ rising off himself.

She was on her feet near the door in an instant. “C’mon, you idiot. This is your treat. Let’s go run around like supernatural nutters in the forest.”

He sputtered. “I … Hermione,  _ I _ can’t catch you like that.”

She shrugged. “Not with that attitude - and I don’t have long. I’ll be weak and tired when it’s over - surely you don’t want me stuck out there alone like that? You don’t think I’d do this without a secondary goal of some stubborn and ill-advised sort, do you? I suggest you hurry up and  _ try _ . Who knows? Maybe the thing I aim to do is  _ you. _ ”

Then the door was ajar, and she was gone. 

❧

About one hour and fifteen minutes later, something blurred into the office and suddenly the two armchairs across from Charity Burbage’s new desk were occupied. It happened just as she was arriving for the day. One of her visitors was a blearily blinking Hermione Granger - cradled by armrests rather than sitting properly upright. The other was an aggrieved and aggravated Remus Lupin - eyes only slightly gold-flecked and one suede elbow patch hanging half off his tweed robes - which were a lovely and otherwise well-maintained symphony of interwoven shades of green. 

Charity glanced between them, blinking in surprise but immediately donning a very professional and solicitous smile. Hermione and Dumbledore had each briefed her - over some good giggle water in the former’s case - and she’d had some notion of what she might expect from this meeting. Indeed, the importance and unusualness of the work were part of the miracle of having gotten this position, to her. 

“Healer Burbage,” Remus began while Hermione snuggled down into the plush armrests and looked around sleepily. “I believe our colleague Ms. Granger needs an intervention. She’s been excessively foolhardy and I can’t imagine she had any reasonable expectation of surviving her own antics this morning." The muscles of his jaw flexed as he attempted to gather himself. "I recovered her when she was in the course of collapsing from exhaustion in the wake of having single-handedly wrecked havoc on an enormous colony of Acromantula - did you  _ know _ they’d become a seriously entrenched invasive species in the Forbidden Forest?!” He shook his head, returning to the point. “When I managed to reach her, she was zipping about under spell-induced speed, cackling maniacally as she somehow vanished scores upon scores of egg sacs and many of the colony’s more diminutive, brown-”

“-Female,” Hermione interjected, her eyes now closed, voice rasping, a beatific smile on her lips.

Remus shook his head, letting out a hiss of exasperation, “I was going to say, in all likelihood  _ female _ members of the settlement.” Charity opened a notebook, unobtrusively starting to take notes while Remus slumped back, pressing his fingertips to his temples and closing his eyes. “There was an insanely large male charging after her who spoke English and was promising he’d kill her in new and gruesome ways at every step. I imagine we’ll have to ward them into a confined space somehow. now, to keep the students safe.”

Hermione, who was acting almost drunk, started to wave her hands about airily, as though conducting an imaginary symphony. “Back to Boooooorrrrrrrneo, tra la la la la! Farewell ye hairy jackasses, your eight feet treadth too neeeeeear… something something victory let's quaff some butter beeeer...”

Remus cut a look over at her, then looked at Charity, who was still writing, as if to say,  _ Do you see what I have to put up with from her? _

Charity nodded, tucking away her quill, and looked up at him, her chin poised propped on the backs of her hands. “And how did Hermione’s actions make you  _ feel _ , Remus?”

Remus huffed, folding his arms. “Like we need to keep her safe from ruddy well self-destructing, that’s how! There was no reason for her to believe it probable that anyone could have rescued her from that entirely unprovoked mess - granted the arachnid horde shouldn't be here in the first place, but taking on a colony of over a thousand alone and without so much as informing others was … was sheer  _ hubris!  _ When I scooped her up, she was sinking to her knees, completely depleted of magic and surrounded by those chittering  _ nightmares _ , and they were closing in from all sides -” he ground to a halt with a shiver, pulling Hermione's chair closer to his and beginning to fuss over checking her for injuries with medical diagnostic charms. “Next time I see a Bogart,” he muttered as he fussed, “I'm certain it will have a nightmarish new form. The entire thing was… was  _ unhinged _ .”

Charity nodded thoughtfully. “It’s very difficult, feeling protective of those we love when they don’t seem to hold their own safety as dear as we do, isn’t it?” She shook her head sadly. “You know, I bet you’ve had some difficulties before - how’d you solve them then? Do you tend to connect in times of tension best through, oh, a project undertaken together? A shared meal? A touch of intercourse, perhaps?”

Both the people across her desk were suddenly staring at Charity - heads up, eyes quizzical. 

She only held the expression of sincere professional inquiry for another few seconds before she cracked, spinning in her chair and chortling. “Sorry - sorry. Em, you know, I hadn’t known she’d planned to go _quite_ that far to get you here, but - welcome, Remus! You’re going to have to spend some time on _that_ side of the desk before you can learn much, my worthy apprentice.” She shook her head, still laughing as both her guests’ faces reddened. “Oh, and congratulations on catching her while motivated predominantly by compassion! Now, let’s get Hermione off to take a nap somewhere - I imagine she could have a kip in the infirmary, so Poppy can monitor for ill effects from whatever spell she’s done - but _we,_ Remus, have some extraordinary work to do together - starting with some assessment spells, never fear, _not_ dialectical therapy. Oh, I’m _so_ looking forward to digging in!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning about possible publishing delays: my somewhat challenging mother is just out of the hospital after a nasty accident and my watch begins in about a week, for about a week. Depending on how obstreperous she's feeling and how wiley she got the energy to be, I may have either more or less time to write and post while I'm with her. As a result, I may not be able to post much in the run up and while I'm away. 
> 
> Still, never fear - we're nowhere near done yet.


	39. Athena and Odysseus

###  NOVEMBER 20, 1981

Hermione gave up reviewing her lesson plans at noon - she’d done as much as she could, really, and she’d become far too jumpy to continue being productive. 

Besides, the long black box on her bed had become far too distracting. 

So she’d bathed. In a fit of either history or irony, she’d smoothed her skin with oils liberally sprinkled with crumbled gold leaf and scented with labdanum and rose, cinnamon and styrax, marjoram and anise. She changed the balance here and there so that her hand would be spiced and her thighs, sweet and darker. She charmed the sheen and slickness of it to stay and worked some into her hair, too, darkening and defining her curls before threading the locks from around her face through large, golden beads that held her hair back from her temples. She kohled her eyes emphatically, almost passing Greek to Egyptian.She scrubbed her lips with sugar and dressed them with charmed honey, shining, thick, and durable. Finally, she spelled her irises a silvery gray, then went to dress.

Baka had done well.

The chiton he’d made her was full length, and made of diaphanously-thin, unicorn-white silk. It was tawdry despite its simplicity in the sun, but when she closed her curtains, it rippled over her, unstained by the fixed oil and revealing  _ just _ more than the silhouette of her naked body beneath by candlelight. The red velvet martial cloak he’d made her was edged and lined with gold and fastened below her collarbones with a heavy clasp of gilt snakes biting each other’s necks, a nod to the shield-cloak Aegis. Lastly, she laced golden sandals up her calves, secured seemingly seamless hammered gold gauntlets around her forearms, and put on her Corinthian helm - gold topped with a high, blood-red plume. 

She stuck the helm to her head with a charm. She knew she’d forget it was there and it’d fall off at the most embarrassing moment possible otherwise. 

Then, sliding her true wand into hiding up a gauntlet, she used it with a wave of her hand to transfigure a spare into a spear to finish the costume. 

(The spare was unicorn and vine, comparable in length and appearance, but just not  _ hers _ the same way. Still, ever since breaking Harry’s, and then having to use Bellatrix’s, she had made a point of carrying several and stashing more in strategic locations.)

Then, noting she had an hour before she had to leave, she looked in the mirror.

It was  _ perfect _ . 

It was  _ too _ perfect.

She was an avenging  _ virgin  _ on her way to an  _ orgy _ . What she needed was a  _ hero  _ to take up her endeavor. 

With a twist of her lips, she cast the Patronus and waited for the knock.

It took just slightly longer than she’d anticipated - and he didn’t knock. Instead, he hissed into the door. “Of  _ course  _ I’m up! Do you think me a toddler, napping before dinner?”

She opened the door.

His eyes went wide, raking down her body then back to her eyes. “Command me, my goddess!” he finally murmured, pushing into the room and closing the door behind him.

She smirked, walking backward and beckoning him after her. “Worship me.”

His white teeth sparkled, a hand pressed to his heart. “Take your throne, then, o my queen. I’ll to my knees at your feet. Always a divine favor indeed to sip from the wine-dark sea.”

She half-snorted as he pushed her onto the bench at the foot of her bed and knelt between her knees, rucking up her skirt and smiling wickedly before disappearing under it.

“Oh, wisdom, let me know you!” he crooned into her thigh.

She batted gently at his now-veiled head halfheartedly. “Keep using your lips to speak rather than drink me up and you’ll  _ also  _ need to break out the rosy fingers of dawn, you swineherd.”

He shook with laughter even as he shoved her thighs wide and sank nose and mouth into her like a man eager to drown.

❧

Forty five minutes later, her lips were swollen, her hair mussed, and hand-shaped disturbances marred the artfully speckled flecks of gold along the skin of her hips and ankles. 

With a shudder, she let him slowly slip from her and threw her leg back over his torso to dismount while he eased his hips down to the mattress and stretched. Then she stumbled over to the mirror.

Sweat commingled with oil. Her nipples were clearly outlined beneath the silk in their titillated state. Her eyes were dark and full of satisfaction. She was even walking differently. She was perfectly, gorgeously mussed and looked like an avatar of feminine power -  _ and _ war.

“Oh, my  _ swineherd _ ,” she purred, looking back at him over her shoulder as he smirked at her over his glistening shoulder, nude on her bed and lounging on his side in such a way that she could admire every muscle down his back. He seemed to have picked up her copy of  _ Snow Crash,  _ resuming his place from some earlier point when she hadn’t known he’d been reading it.

She liked seeing her scratches on his back, and feeling him still, wet on her thighs. These were things that were… just such  _ carnal  _ fucking things that didn’t resonate through her like this with anyone else. And he  _ knew  _ she’d be gone tonight with Severus, and then as long as the entire weekend with Remus, who’d been near miss after near miss and broke his heart besides. And that he was still  _ here _ , not fussing even as his eyes made her not want to go anywhere, that he cheered her toward anything she wanted or needed even to his own detriment, just  _ burned  _ through her.

He was dangerous.

“Next time you play the grey-eyed goddess, you ought to bridle me, I think,” he mused lightly, turning a page and then glancing back at her again with roguish speculation. “She invented them, you know. And stirrups also present some  _ fascinating _ possibilities...” 

It was always like he was  _ always _ either determining exactly what she needed to hear to be  _ whole... _ or quipping effortlessly while running the complex engineering tests necessary to figure out how he could most egregiously surprise her with his next act of coital athleticism. He never missed a reference but he didn’t exactly show off - at least not with her - or make her feel like  _ she  _ was doing so for just saying whatever occurred to her. 

She blinked at him, her smile fading. 

He blinked back, confusion and concern already dawning on his face. “Hermione, did I do..?”

She was already shaking her head vigorously. “No, I… look. I’m not… I can’t…” She sighed testily, beyond exasperated with herself. “ _ Fuck  _ a truck-driving duck in the muck, stuck, fuck fuck  _ fuck!” _

He blinked, sitting up. “Em, alright. Can’t decide if  _ that  _ was adorable or disturbing...”

“Don’t ask me now! Just… not now, alright?” Fuming, she threw up her hands in frustration then threw herself at him, knocking him backward across the bed in a furious storm of kisses. Which… he didn’t seem to mind, but also clearly knew wasn’t the entire conversation even as she started to work rapidly down his chest. 

“Are you sure we shouldn’t talk with our voices rather than our very,  _ very  _ impressive throats and various other oral talents,  _ Promachos?” _ He blinked down, shivering, as she ignored him. “Alright, I admit, I forgot to  _ explicitly  _ laud your unequaled tongue, only I know that you…” he moaned and his head fell back, his bed arching up from the mattress spasmodically. “ _ That _ wasn’t fair,” he whined, breathless, “not  _ fair _ , you  _ demoness _ . Sweet Circe,  _ please  _ do it again.”

❧

When he woke she was gone and his throat was still raw from the most exquisite sort of yelling. 

He couldn’t bring himself to move until he’d closed his eyes to replay it all in his head. 

She’d left a note, though:

GOOD. DOWN. STAY.

…  _ please. _ \- H


	40. Olympios

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I very much hope you do not mind some Greek mythology seeping in...

###  MALFOY MANOR

Severus had been casting concerned and somewhat petulant looks at her since she’d run up to him, breathless, just beyond the edge of the Apparition ward’s extension into the Forbidden Forest, even obscured as she was by the voluminous and concealing black overcloak she wore over her costume.

But after they doffed their cloaks, he gasped and almost seemed to stumble.

There must be  _ actual _ unicorn hair in the silk, he thought - not much, because it was subtle, but nothing else would glow in such a way. Still, it was her affected dishabille that arrested him. 

He hadn’t seen her rise from his bed - she left always while he slept - but he’d imagined it looking something like this. He would not pry - it could just be… a very, very  _ inspired  _ costume. One that all but dripped with recent ravishing - she, the aggressor. It was the most provocative thing he had ever seen.

He wondered who’d dressed her in it, and why it hadn’t been him.

( _ And?  _ he thought.  _ She is not  _ bound  _ to me. And if I cannot treat each moment we are together as the gift it is, I will absolutely  _ lose  _ her. Can’t it be enough?) _

He gathered himself and took her hand, preparing himself to lead her to be introduced to their hosts.

❧

Lucius Malfoy. 

_ Of  _ course _ he’d fashion himself as Zeus _ , she thought, keeping her walls tight to her mind and her face knowing.

He was too thin for it, too pale and unbearded, but he didn’t look bad. The silvery toga that richly wound around him looked like it could be twitched off at the slightest whim, appropriately, and he cradled crackling lightning between his hands, smirking and dripping entitlement and power as he stood to greet the guests.

The manor itself was entirely transformed - though it had an air of illusory vagueness about it. The space was large, open, and seemed to be a rough-hewn grotto with few interior walls and many slopes and curves. Mist flowed over rough stone floors and little mossy bowers and steaming pools were situated around and about in plain view for some of the more shameless guests to disport themselves together - and for others to merely sit and talk. All around the walls, though, were crystalline enclosures through which couples (and less conventional numbers) engaging in all manner of the obscene and the illicit where they could be seen only in silhouette. 

Ahead of them in line waited a pudgy little man, richly caped in purple velvet, with a dazed and absent-looking Veela on his arm. Hermione wouldn’t let herself shudder. Even in her own day, it still wasn’t technically illegal to use an Unforgivable Curse on a magical being. Pure Veela weren’t even allowed wands, for all they intermarried with wizards and often shared similar capabilities.

The realization that many might  _ marry _ under Imperius made her blood run cold - and so she stood still a moment too long after the couple moved on, leaving Severus to have to tug her along to the front of the queue.

“Well, and what have we here… some most  _ fascinating _ disruption of the dress code, I see! But I must say, you did it to  _ glorious _ effect, Severus.”

Hermione pulled herself together fast at the sound of Malfoy’s voice, standing a little closer to Severus but by no means behind him, and affecting a sort of affluent boredom with the proceedings as she gave a cursory look around.

Severus, who was dressed as Hector in Trojan battle regalia, doffed his own Corinthian helm, white-plumed, with a slight nod of greeting. “I find it difficult to deny this one anything, I’m afraid,” he grumbled with real sincerity.

Lucius’s eyes pivoted then to Hermione, sweeping her up and down with growing interest. “Well, then, perhaps Daddy will have to teach his daughter a lesson sometime this evening, for being so defiant.”

Hermione looked back at him, radiating boredom and ambivalence in a way that seemed to discomfit him, by the way he took half a step back. “...  _ However _ ,” he said, now taking in her face more specifically, as if trying to catalog her, “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting the mysterious lady behind the act of rebellion.” He swept an ornate bow which nevertheless didn’t much lower him. “Welcome. I’m Lucius Malfoy, host of this little revel, though tonight you may call me Zeus, or any other little endearment that you may desire. And you are…?”

She nodded brusquely, extending her hand. “Granger - Hermione Granger. You may call me Athena, or any of her cults’ stylings, I suppose.”

He cocked his head and took her hand, continuing to regard her with fascination. “I haven’t heard of your family. And isn’t Athena rather famously a virgin?”

She smiled. “I’ll tell them that’s working, then - but please do not believe I am telling you who I truly am with that name. As to virginity, are not all daughters so in their dearest daddies’ eyes?” She rolled hers, shaking her head. “Seems to me a goddess of wisdom would do a fair bit of  _ knowing _ others, and being  _ known _ herself.”

Malfoy shrugged, lifting her hand to his lips with a smirk. “Severus, you’ve never had luck before. You’ll have to tell me at which temple you sacrificed to summon  _ this _ wonder.”

Severus huffed. “ _ Un _ likely.”

Hermione forced herself to smirk slightly at Lucius, who had not exactly yet kissed nor relinquished her hand. “And are you by yourself at the helm of this fete, then? Has Hera left you all alone?”

Lucius shook his head, tickling the pads of her fingers with his own. “No, no, my dear - this is a party about how we shall  _ prevail _ , and there are better goddesses to enshrine to  _ that _ end.”

At that moment, a woman clad in a long but gauzy chiton not unlike her own, but slit up to the thigh on both sides, stepped up beside Lucius Malfoy. Her feet (which were long and pale and perfect, of course) were bare and her breasts pressed rather more against the cloth containing them than did Hermione’s own, and her head was topped with a crown of laurels. Perhaps most stunningly, however, two large, animated, angelic wings swooped from her upper back.

Well, most stunning until one saw her face, at any rate.

“Now  _ here’s _ a less odd couple,” Hermione murmured, tugging her fingers away from Lucius to kneel before Narcissa Malfoy and pick up her hand to kiss it. “At your service, sweet Victory. Won’t you show me your domain? I’d demonstrate my gratitude for your distinctive contribution to this little soiree.”

As she knelt there, brushing her thumb over Narcissa’s knuckles and looking up at her, it occurred to her that this was unplanned and entirely mad - but also that she’d done it all before thinking better of it, almost unable to help it. 

_ Sirius is  _ such _ trouble he’s even rubbing off on me!  _ she thought, fuming, to herself, even as she stared at his cousin. 

Both the men, separated across the diagonal by their linked hands, were watching with a mixture of chagrin and very male fascination as this exchange played out. 

Narcissa was in full high nose mode, glancing at Hermione down that sculpted feature with convincing indifference - but her wings trembled slightly. “But of course. Please, do come right this way.”

Severus began to move as if to object, but then just shrugged, looking at Lucius and realizing no further guests awaited greeting at this time. “It seems,  _ Apomyius _ , that you’re catching flies with your mouth. Let’s leave Nike and Athena to their rendezvous while we go and find some hapless satyr to pour us some wine. 

Before Hermione could rise, he had stepped around her and was leading Lucius away.

Leaving her with Narcissa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_(mythology) , https://www.thecultureconcept.com/athena-and-nike -- useful background information 
> 
> Apparently Athena often came with the Goddess of Victory in the palm of her hand. So did Zeus, but not as much.


	41. Bacchanal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning:   
> Consent issues of the sort one might imagine could arise in a Death Eater sex party.

Narcissa seized two flutes of champagne from a passing server - who was, indeed, a satyr - and paused a moment to thrust one into Hermione’s hand before continuing to tug her through the crowd. 

“You’re meant to be giving me a tour,” Hermione mumbled, almost tripping as she jogged a step to keep up. 

“You want to loiter to gawk?” Narcissa tossed her white-blonde hair back, not turning. 

Hermione lengthened her stride as she glanced around, shrugging.... 

_...And _ seeing no fewer than three wizards availing themselves of a single… she appeared to be a  _ Fairy _ who’d been  _ Engorgio _ ’d to human size, her all-black eyes blinking, her proportions somehow jarring in their exaggeration at this scale. Her vein-marked, clear wings were beating frantically to her sides and she was struggling to free her wrists from the wizard straddling her neck. Some manner of device at the corners of her mouth was keeping her from biting down, and her kicks kept missing the two other wizards, who were laughing as they… 

Hermione made herself look away. Maybe the  _ Imperius _ ’d Veela was actually better off for it. 

By the time she looked back at Narcissa, it was to see her feathered wings folded so tightly they trembled and hear her hissing in disgust.

“I’ve seen it, all of it, far too much of it, too many times. And besides,” she growled, darting a suspicious look back at Hermione, “I very highly doubt anyone incapable of understanding the expected  _ consequences _ of their own wordplay is subtle enough to be of any use to me past an evening’s diversion.”

_ “If they scare you, shame you, or fluster you, smile. Let them think they’re rather cute in their childish antics.” _

Hermione remembered the words from a world to which there was no return. And she willed down a flush and smiled fondly at her host - as if she were tiny Harry figuring out how to flip a page - and shrugged. “If there are other things you’d like to show me, I’ll divert you, but one mustn’t presume. You had the out of simply giving me a tour.”

Narcissa paused and spared her a slightly approving look before turning her head this way and that as if scouting their way forward while she spoke. “After such droll pastimes as  _ that _ ,” she said, waving her hand to the side vaguely before starting forward again, “I doubt the ministrations of another witch will break me.”

Hermione followed the gesture and blinked, taking in the woman bent nude beneath a dull-eyed centaur. 

By the time Hermione had torn her widened eyes away, Narcissa was dragging her into one of the crystal enclosures, this one unique for being covered by an additional spray of quartz that protruded from a wall to make a sort of roof.

“Sorry,” Narcissa whispered, looking around to ascertain no one else was here before downing her champagne with a wrinkle of her nose. “Even for me, it’s not safe to wander at these things without Lucius. I didn’t want us to be… importuned by another guest. And even here, we will be watched,” 

Hermione already heard a wolf whistle from outside, and glanced around quickly. There was a large, low bed in the space, with drawers tucked under it and no linens but for a single covering sheet - mercifully clean. The back wall of the space was brightly lit - doubtless to project their shadows all the more clearly to the outside.

“We’re… to perform, then?” Hermione asked, struggling to keep her tone neutral.

Narcissa shrugged, then grabbed Hermione’s champagne and downed it too before tapping both glasses with her wand - which it seemed  _ she _ was allowed to carry openly - and refilling them, thrusting one at Hermione. “If we don’t, it’ll be interpreted as a sign that we’re open to more...  _ company _ . If you’re insufficiently theatrical, I suggest you drink up.”

Hermione blinked, already in the process of downing her own glass for a second time. “I’m not- It’s just- You’re, but-”

Realizing that a sneer was creeping back onto Narcissa’s face, swiftly moving in to cover hopelessness, Hermione growled in frustration at her inability to articulate and pushed the blonde’s back into the outer crystal wall. She shook her head as she stepped up to follow. “I just haven’t any practice to speak of, is all,” she whispered in exasperation before she stepped into Draco’s mother’s space and kissed her.

And… found her tongue pleasant with the tang of champagne and something more difficult to define, so continued kissing her, chasing the elusive spice that teased her tongue with its mystery.

The whistles outside their little butterfly jar changed in tone and were joined with some applause when Hermione finally pulled back an inch, panting as her chest pressed into Narcissa’s, heaving breath for heaving breath. 

Those ice-gray - or were they blue? - eyes were incredibly close, and darker, she noticed, around the edges of their magnificent irises. And the lips were bruised red, now.

“I… wouldn’t have guessed… that…” Narcissa got out between breaths. Her hands had tangled in Hermione’s hair at some point, Hermione realized, unselfconsciously reaching down to hitch a long, slender leg around her own hip. 

“What’s that?” Hermione murmured, considering the blue-veined white curves of the other woman’s neck with her lower lip between her teeth. 

Narcissa shook her head slightly, sending the scent of her hair billowing around them. “Don’t seem unpracticed,” she said, throwing the other leg up and grasping Hermione’s hips with her surprisingly strong thighs.

Hermione forgot necks and rubbed her nose in the little indentation betwixt Narcissa’s clavicles. “Thanks. I learn quickly.”

Narcissa pushed Hermione’s face down into her cleavage, which she well knew to be peerless, then smirked at the brunettes’s shuddering kisses and licks. “Good. Because I teach impatiently. Suck - harder - harder -  _ there _ .” She threw her head back noticing idly that her wings had spread behind her. “How will you help me, other than leaving me little lovebites to remember you by, Miss Phoenix?”

Hermione groaned, shoving Narcissa’s chiton off her shoulders and yanking it down her arms and chest to droop around her waist. “Bigger lovebites,” she breathed, nosing a soft curve. 

Narcissa shrugged, glancing down coyly. “For the moment I find that’s adequately compelling, for some reason” She pointed primly at her right nipple. “Start here.”

Hermione readily and enthusiastically obliged, tongue flicking and cheeks hollowed as she pulled at the pebbled flesh, though Narcissa’s ‘ _ for some reason’  _ kept nagging at the back of her mind. Narcissa egged her on to the point of biting down quite hard before her back spasmed and arched and she gave a little, breathy cry, exceptionally tense, before sagging back against the crystal and looking sleepily down at the awestruck Hermione, who was watching her.

“Just… just from  _ that?” _ Hermione asked, torn between pride and the sheer unfairness of it.

Narcissa smirked. “Just like that - though it’s been a long, long time.”

Hermione blinked. “I didn’t know that was possible. Also, how the hell did we go from sniping to fucking so fast?

Narcissa let her feet down to the floor and then unceremoniously pushed the brunette down onto the bed. “I haven’t begun to fuck. But I’ve also noticed the strange velocity,” she mused, climbing up over Hermione. “Isn’t there something we’re supposed to be talking about?”

Hermione blinked up, taking a moment to remember how to think as the other woman’s weight pressed over her. “Em… yes, I think there may have been.”

Narcissa grinned impishly and reached over Hermione’s head to seize a pillow - then unceremoniously ripped it open, spreading tiny downy white feathers everywhere. Hermione sputtered, blinking them clear of her eyes and trying to unstick them from her wet lips. “I’m sure it can wait. But I want you privately,” the blonde said, shooting a little unspoken spell into the mess of feathers. Which immediately formed into the silhouette of two women grappling in ways that would make Sappho blush.

Hermione goggled as one seemed to wrap its thighs around the other’s neck and brace its arms on the ceiling, trying to remember words. 

Then, she shrank into a swirl of nothing only to pop into existence again - somewhere darker, in a bed, with Narcissa falling down on top of her with a little chuckle before tearing at the cloth of her gauzy dress. “Fuck,” Hermione said as teeth clamped down on  _ her  _ nipple, setting her writhing with heat and pain. 

Narcissa parted the curtain of her hair between them with a sweep of her arm to look up at her, smirking. “Yes, let’s.”

Hermione wriggled and mewled as the other woman’s hot mouth started to work down her stomach. “ _ Fuck _ , no, something’s wrong… got to talk about how to extr- ooooh, oh fuck fuck fuck,” she trailed as Narcissa started to yank up her skirt impatiently. “God, you do that and we’ll never… fuck,” she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, copper rich on her tongue, “ _ fuck _ , Narcissa, stop, you’ve, we’ve, fuck fuck FUCK please stop gods!”

The blonde glanced up, looking harassed, from where she had her teeth sunk into the flesh of Hermione’s inner thigh. 

Hermione panted, looking down. “That was a hell of a charm. And… the hell, there was … oh, shit, I have an antidote, I thought… but to his own  _ wife?”  _

Whimpering in reluctance, Hermione extracted herself from under the protesting Narcissa and pulled two small ampules from under one bracer, thinking a moment before pulling both corks at once with her teeth and tossing both back, and then surging forward to kiss her strange bedfellow firmly, swirling the potion on both their tongues. 

When they pulled back slightly, breasts sticking together with sweat and spit, the edge was somewhat off the urgency.

They looked at each other in befuddlement for a moment from very, very near. And then they both started to swear and reassemble themselves. 

_ “That wretch  _ told me he would  _ never _ drug the wine again, Malfoy  _ garbage,  _ I cannot believe I didn’t insist on touring the continent before getting engaged, that utter  _ insect…” _

“There…. There was love potion… in the … in the champagne… em… right… Draco! Draco! And damn, you’re good with a charm, I’ve never seen anything  _ like _ that feather thing…”

Once they were both approximately covered, they slumped, seated with their backs against diagonal bedposts, and looked at each other. 

Finally Hermione spoke. “Look, I send the right spell and Aurors swarm this place, allegedly on  _ your _ intelligence, and Lucius and anyone here who’s engaged in similar nonconsensual violation will have a hell of a time pleading they were  _ Imperius _ ’d. Narcissa Malfoy, brave heiress and protective mother, becomes a hero - and possibly a member of the Hogwarts Charms’ faculty, come to think of it. Lucius, however, goes to jail. Can you deal with that?”

Narcissa looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t want him in forever. I have to hope without that influence, he might find a human within himself somewhere to be a real father, or a real husband.”

Hermione pursed her lips. “He could get you both killed.”

Narcissa arched a brow imperiously. “If I’m seen as doing this for anything less than my family’s well being, that could get me killed, too. And I’m fond of him. Sometimes.”

Hermione felt unjustly mutinous at that, but pushed it aside. “We’ll think of something, then. But we’ll need to search the house. There’s something very dangerous here. And your sister…”

Narcissa closed her eyes, a flicker of true sadness in her hunching shoulders as she shook her head. “Bella may be irredeemable. The things she’s willingly done for -  _ with  _ \- the Dark Lord give me nightmares. I don’t know that the damage is repairable. I don’t know that she wouldn’t have become a Dark Lady, had no Lord presented himself, either. I only have one sister, and she’s blasted from my family tree.”

Hermione hesitated, then stayed on her corner - but wanted to hold this strange other again.

Instead, she straightened, shaking her head. “Right, then. Things will happen quickly. Are you ready?”

Narcissa took a deep breath and nodded.

Then, Hermione sent her  _ Patronus _ . 

And very soon after… all hell broke loose.


	42. Toujours Beaux

Sirius burst into the bedroom, wand aloft, stride predatory. Hermione and Narcissa jumped, then each gave him their own disbelieving look.

He immediately relaxed, throwing his head back and barking out a laugh. “Oh, of course you’re both here.” 

Then, he sat down on the edge of the bed and tweaked his cousin’s nose before she could smack his hand away. “Let’s go get the little fellow, then,” he said, flashing his Auror badge. “I used a kin-tracking spell to find you so I could bring you in for a statement.” Then, he looked over at Hermione, his expression a bit more tired and resigned. “Sorry I couldn’t wait, love - still an Auror, and I asked to be on hand for this. I don’t have much family I suspect may be redeemable, and I was worried about you.”

Narcissa glanced between them, her eyes narrowing, as Hermione shrugged. “Later, when you’re done?” she asked.

The Animagus smiled. “Wild Deatheater Orgies couldn’t keep me away.” Then, he turned to Narcissa. “Do you still always keep a bag packed, Cissy? Want to pack some more? I fully expect you’ll be able to return and live in this ghastly exercise in genteel masculine compensation, but it might take a while to lift curses and search, first.”

As the two of them started to talk and wander into the closet, keeping up a patter of familial ribbing, Hermione almost tripped over an Apparating house elf.

“Dobby!” she squeaked, falling to her knees and hugging him fiercely.

“Em, miss… miss, I is… I is carrying… oh,  _ please _ , miss, you is making me blush, you is!”

Hermione pulled back, smiling, and saw that a very, very young Dobby was red around his long nose and his bat-like ears, and had also brought the tiny, blonde heir of the house along with him in a sort of backpack-like baby-wearing device. Tiny Draco looked startled as the yells and bangs in the hall outside got louder, and was beginning to fuss. 

Hermione  _ tsked  _ and asked, “May I pick him up? He’s so  _ cute _ at this age. 

Narcissa poked her head out of the closet as Dobby backed away, anxious. “She may, elf.” And then she was gone again. 

So, with Dobby’s careful assistance, Hermione picked Draco up out of the little carrier and looked him over.

He was wearing just the most  _ adorable _ , immaculate little lavender jumpsuit with a soft white cardigan. Overcome with goddamn hormones, she started cooing and kissed his tiny, upturned nose. “Whosa snobby baby? You is! Yousa whittle pureblood menace in the making, you! Has anything less than a silver spoon ever touched this itty bitty pouty mouth? Oh! I think it hasn’t, sir! No, I do not think so! Not for itty bitty Draco!”

Draco blinked at her in precocious perplexity. “Mummy? Where is my Mummy? Who you?”

Hermione blinked, all the more delighted. “And he’s so  _ verbal _ , too! Oh my goodness!”

She unceremoniously undid a few snaps and blew raspberries on his belly button. He didn’t last half a second in indignations before squealing with laughter.

When Hermione went up, it sounded like elephants were fighting in the hall and Sirius and Narcissa were both looking at her with soft smiles. Also, Dobby looked confused and like he didn’t know where to go.

Hermione looked back at Draco. “Here’s your Mummy and your cousin Sirius now!”

Draco blinked wide eyes. “ _ Naughty _ cousin Sirius?”

Hermione nodded. “The naughtiest. How do you know about naughtiness, though?”

Draco thought for a moment. “I throw things everywhere and use crayons on walls.”

Hermione nodded seriously. “I bet he does too. You’re going to be great friends.”

Narcissa raised a brow haughtily and Sirius, again, laughed. Hermione gave Draco a parting hug and did up his snaps again before offering him to his mother. 

“Alright, then,” she muttered, standing and brushing herself off. “Sirius, I presume you’re going to take them in to the DMLE and keep them from those who would mistreat them for association,” she paused to smile at his nod, “so I’ll ask now: Narcissa, may I please have this house elf?”

Narcissa shrugged. “That one? He’s young - years of work left to train him and ideas above his station, but if you’re certain…”

Hermione nodded adamantly. Narcissa summoned a piece of paper - which looked altogether too much like a deed - and a quill, quickly scribbling on it and handing it to Hermione, who folded it and stuck it under a bracer. Then looked down at Dobby.

“Dobby, let’s talk later - I’m afraid I have a few very difficult days coming - but would you please wait for me at Hogwarts? The castle’s elves can give you things to help with if you need and find you a place to stay with good company. I think you may soon find Sirius and Narcissa there, too, if you’re bored when I’m occupied.”

Dobby, who looked vaguely nauseated with shock, nodded, glancing up at her. “Dobby will make every effort, that is, Dobby will absolutely be the bestest elf, miss, Dobby will not fail you, Dobby will tremble, tremble before your displeasure, miss, and-”

“-No trembling, Dobby!” Hermione sighed, sinking back to her knees. “I will never punish you, not ever. If we can find a way to do it that would be safe and agreeable for you, I’d like to make you free. If you’d like to continue to work for me, I’d like to pay you for it, too.”

Dobby stood very still, looking as if he expected this to be some sort of joke. 

Hermione shook her head. “I’m absolutely serious. I think you’d be a very good friend, if you’d like that - and I think we may both think a little differently than most.”

With a sudden, loud burst of tears and a nod, he disappeared. 

Hermione got back up again and noticed the quizzical grey stares she was facing. “It’s a long story,” she grumbled, waving them away. “Narcissa can Apparate within the Manor. Get to someplace near the border of the grounds where no one else is likely to be trying to escape, and go, will you? You both have serious House Elf prejudices to overcome, but you’re so damn cute I’m willing to take you to school later.” She motioned them away impatiently. “Scoot.”

With another crack, the three members of the House of Black disappeared, too. 

And then, with a deep breath, Hermione walked toward the clamor of the fight going on in the hall outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As Pride was cancelled and we're nearing the end of LGBTQI* Wrath Month, and as the works that inspired this fic have, I think, transcended the prejudices and shortcomings of their author: 
> 
> Black Trans Lives Matter. Also Trans and Black Lives independently. Stand up for your neighbors if you have the privilege to talk back, folks.


	43. Sing, O Goddess, of the Rage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:  
> Battle Magic  
> Magical Morning After Potion  
> Recent victims of mind control, violence, and sexual violence

She no sooner stepped out than saw Lucius sprinting by, casting vicious hexes over his shoulder. From the cover of the deep doorway, she hit him with an  _ Impedimenta _ from an unexpected angle, and colliding with it with a thud, he went down, nose bloody. 

She mimed a discreet tip of her helm to Moody and then walked back toward the bulk of the noise. 

When she exited the hall into the illusory grotto, screams, yells, and curses were flying everywhere. And that was hardly all of it. 

Ducking away from a red stream of searing magic, she dove into one of the small crystal chambers - only to find the same fairy she’d seen being gang raped earlier tied down beneath the panting thrusts of a greying Death Eater she recognized as a Mulciber - likely the one who’d died before the second war but who had been a school contemporary of Riddle’s and a lieutenant in the first. As the spells rebounded and exploded all around, even cracking the crystals around them, he just laughed, seeming more aroused the thicker the violence got. 

Hermione’s lips curled back from her teeth in fury and disgust, and she waved her wand-concealing bracer at him. “ _ Depulso!” _ she spat, sending him crashing into the crystal wall with a crunch before hurrying to stoop before his victim, whose squirming was feebler than it had been, and assessing her injuries. 

To her revulsion, they seemed to be substantial but internal - but for her torn, gossamer wings. She made what she hoped was a recognizable soothing sound, then said, “I’m going to give you something to heal you, then end the enlargement charm on you. There are open windows outside this room, or you could dart out a door - you should be well enough to fly, or you could wait near the front door and I’ll make sure to let you out later. Look… I hope… I think you can understand me,” she said, looking down at the struggling fairy, still tied. “Do you want me to give you an abortifacient as well as the Wiggenweld Potion? These bastards almost certainly were trying to get a child on you so they could steal it and claim it was theirs later.”

Stilling a moment before really  _ looking _ at Hermione, the fairy nodded her head.

Grimly, Hermione summoned her little beaded bag from the pocket of her cloak near the entryway, and poured the necessary potions past sharp teeth and down the fairy’s bruised throat. She waited a minute, dashing around to hold the right edges of torn wing membranes together so they didn’t heal wrong as the potions worked, then finally cast a quick  _ Finite _ , letting the fairy shrink clear of her bonds and, mercifully, flit away.

Then, standing, she found herself rather angry.

As she walked through the party, she spelled her white robes red, making herself recognizable and reflecting her mood as her spare-wand-concealing spear whirled in one hand and the bracer containing her true wand moved with the other arm. 

A step, and Cornelius Fudge fell under a full-body bind, his pants still not entirely fastened and his hands stuck at his belt. 

Another, and Alecto Carrow, still bouncing astride an Imperius-struck male siren in a shallow pool while dueling two Aurors, lifted off her victim and hung upside down in mid-air by a well-placed  _ Levicorpus _ . 

Another, and through the entry of another crystal alcove, Yaxley was frozen by one  _ Immobulus  _ an instant before a second spell stilled a young Gilderoy Lockhart in the act of fellating him. 

With her next step, over the already-prone form of some unknown Death Eater, she wondered if Lockhart would still win all those Witch Weekly awards for his smile.

With a snarl of menace, and her  _ next _ step, she blasted a young Delores Umbridge out of the corner in which she was trying, it seemed, to finish a carnal transaction with an Imperiused Muggle man. She'd used a  _ Confringo,  _ and didn't bother to help dear Delores put the fire in her hair out as she ran screaming away. She did, however, pause to drop a shield amulet of her own devising around the dazed man’s neck and break the bitch’s thick, foul wand.

With the next step she ducked under a sickly green light and fired her own flurry of hexes back at Antonin Dolohov, who at least had the courtesy of having his trousers on, then kneed him in the groin as he attempted to rally before breaking his wand and casting  _ Incarcerous  _ on him.  _ Let him try and catch me off guard in the Department of Mysteries _ now, she thought as she moved on. 

Four other unknowns and Walden Macnair fell fighting as she worked toward the front hall, where most of the Aurors were grouped behind cover. 

She sidestepped to yank Pansy Parkinson’s mother from under the Imperius-struck centaur in another crystal alcove, hissing in disgust before immobilizing her and hemming a moment before she elected not to shield but rather to free the stallion with a  _ Finite. _ He blinked in alarm, bucking as he wheeled about, and she leaned her spear against the wall and raised her hands in surrender. “My name’s Hermione. I’m very sorry to meet you like this. I removed the curse the dark wizards and witches in this place held you with rather than using human magic to protect you while it kept you calm. I didn’t think you’d want it to continue polluting your own magic until the fight was safely over. Are you hurt?”

The centaur sneered down at her. “You mean to tell me you weren’t a part of this little  _ pony-riding _ club?”

Hermione shook her head adamantly. “I was not. Not that I’m opposed to magical peoples mixing - just that I believe firmly in consent. I am sorry for how your will and body were violated here today. You should be aware this isn’t the first witch I saw you with - and that others may have been trying to use you to … improve their inbred stock. I’m sorry - I don’t really know what can be done to call that back now.”

The centaur pranced in agitation, then glowered down at her and seized one of her raised hands, looking over her palm swiftly - only to let it go as if burned and look at her face again, more carefully. “Hermione, you say?”

She nodded, a little unnerved. “Yes. I’m a member of the Order of the Phoenix. I came here to try to help the cause against Voldemort. I… I suppose I teach, now, at Hogwarts.” 

She hated how she rambled when people made her uncomfortable. 

The centaur nodded. “Very well.” And then he loped away. 

She emerged from the crystal chamber in time to see him take a soaring leap over two rows of fighting Aurors and the various bits of furniture they’d turned into a stronghold, so awed she didn’t get her shield up in time when none other than Fenrir Greyback charged her. 

She yelped as he dragged her by the neck into another damn alcove. “Those were allies of mine, little human,” he growled as he threw her down on the bed, next to a young Muggle or Muggleborn girl, perhaps 17, who was shaking and crying and covered with bloody bites. 

She propped herself up on her elbows, spitting out a mouthful of blood from their earlier collision. “ _ You _ are human  _ too _ , you fleabitten mongrel,” she hissed, casting a flurry of curses that only burned or bruised him one tenth as much as they ought to have as he stood leering over her. 

“I, missy, am  _ all _ wolf. You may be a little overripe for me, but oh ho! You’ll know it, too, before I’m done with you.” 

As he leaned down, licking his chops lasciviously as he reached for her knees, she fumbled a Wolfsbane bomb - made two years ago in preparation for this very eventuality - up from out of her beaded bag and smashed it into his face, heedless of the slivers of silvered glass that slices her own hand as he howled and backed away, clawing at his eyes as smoke rose from his skin. Wincing as she brushed shards from her lap and pulled the largest of them from her palm before she nodded to the injured girl. “I don’t know how long he’ll be incapacitated. Can you come with me?”

Shaking, the girl nodded, stumbling to her feet.

Hermione summoned her spear from where she’d forgotten it and fought like a demon with the wounded young woman close behind her. She stabbed Greyback in the side and the shoulder and kicked his ribs in before casting about her with a veritable corona of hexes, downing at least ten unknown Death Eaters, Rowle, and Goyle. Maybe, she thought grimly, Gregory might turn out better without daddy in the picture.

Ducking into the last alcove, she blasted Travers off a confunded Veela, then finally walked up to the Aurors, who were standing now as they blasted away at the last few outliers of the largely depleted crowd. 

“Who in the fae fucking forest are  _ you?” _ growled Rufus Scrimgeour, vibrating with fury to have been upstaged at his own raid. 

“... and do you have plans for next Friday night?” murmured the deep voice of a young Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Hermione blinked in surprise at the second, and then looked back at the first. “I’m a colleague of your employee Sirius Black’s at Hogwarts. I accompanied still another colleague here tonight but thought I might as well help when it became evident the direction things were going.”

Then, Dumbledore  _ ex machina _ , the Hogwarts Headmaster stepped up and patted the irate Scrimgeour’s shoulder. “There, well done, now, Rufus.” Then he looked up, as if surprised, and took Hermione’s wounded hand gently in his own, “Well done, Professor Granger - it looks as if your help was invaluable to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I myself will be the first to nominate you for a well-deserved Order of Merlin.”

More important than that, for her, was that when he let go of her hand, all the glass was gone and the cuts were healed. With a nod and a ragged breath as the adrenaline ebbed, she guided the frightened girl behind her into Albus’ care. She saw immediately that he recognized her. 

“Oh, oh dear. Violet, let’s get you to St. Mungos. I am so very, very sorry - but I will make certain you receive the best of care. Or… hmm… would you rather go to the infirmary, my dear? I assure you that  _ both _ remain options to you - it is not a full moon.”

Hermione felt drained as she watched the girl collapse into the headmaster’s arms and be whisked away. She didn’t know if the Anti-Apparition Ward that could hold Dumbledore existed - well, save one, alas.

And then, shaking her head, she started to direct the Aurors to those she’d incapacitated or left for later help along her way.


	44. Little Consecrations

###  NOVEMBER 21, 1981

She only got about twenty feet back down the long, ostentatious hall where she'd incapacitated Lucius before she heard a hiss from an alcove holding a status of Persephone, wrought in rich brown granite looking grief stricken with a bitten pomegranate in her hand, with the powerful, white-carved figure of Hades on his knees before her, menacing and beautiful even as his hands froze in the act of pushing up her skirt, his lips on her thigh. 

She blinked at the incredible work of art a moment before snapping herself out of it and listening. “ _ Hermione!”  _ the hiss came again, edged in panic. 

She slid behind the statue, only to be roughly gathered up in Severus’s arms. “Oh, thank Merlin, I had no idea what had befallen you - Lucius was so  _ smug _ about drugging all the wine, the insidious little shit…”

Hermione smiled a little at this protective streak from where he’d pressed her face into the embossed leather of his costume armor. “Not to worry, I’m fine - I figured it out before anything too serious went awry. The wanker might’ve warned his own wife, though.”

Snape shuddered, pulling her closer. “It was done on purpose. He suspected that if the Dark Lord showed up tonight, he’d claim the one prize he’d never been able to contrive a way to take before.”

Hermione’s lip curled in disgust. “Revolting!”

Snape shrugged, pulling back enough to look her over. “The Dark Lord requires emotional victims. Imperius would never have worked because of it. I think he may actually have done it to keep her from pain, but I know he also has a… distasteful yen to watch her with others. It is something that, given her own way, she would seldom if ever indulge him in.”

Hermione shuddered and leaned back against him. “How the fuck do you people concoct such broken, horrific cultures in your little cults? Why?”

Severus was quiet a moment, gently straightening wisps of hair Draco had pulled askew from her carefully contrived coiffure. “Hermione,” he said finally, his voice sad and gentle, “Some of us were born into horrific, broken little worlds. Tom Riddle included, from what you’ve shown me of his tragic history. I don’t imagine  _ he  _ would have turned out…  _ well _ … whatever his circumstances, but I… as one who was also seduced by his ‘cult,’ as you put it, understand the allure of a world of pain in which you control the inflicting rather than being subject to it, and in which it is a road to power and security, rather than a senseless ailment that can only erode at one’s sanity and safety.”

Hermione was silent a long moment, cursing the tears on her face and the absolute senseless violence that happened to children in the world. 

Finally, she spoke. “I want to overwrite the pain for you. To help you see the good and find power in it. To understand it isn’t some foreign land reserved for others but a state you have every right to. To help you trust in kindness and be happy.”

He tilted her chin up, smiling sadly. “And you don’t realize, do you, that you’re already beginning to drag me in that direction, Hermione? Willing or not, I am pulled by you into warmer places… hmmm… brightening every dark, disreputable corner.”

Slowly, giving her the opportunity to feel his arousal between them and either laugh and pull away or engage with it, he pressed closer. 

She gasped. “Fuck. And this is a corner you’d have me brighten, then, is it? I suppose most of the Aurors  _ are  _ gone, now...”

He smirked against her lips as he lowered his own to her mouth. “Imagine how positively apoplectic Lucius Malfoy would be to know two members of the Order of the Phoenix delivered him to the Aurors and then profaned his home with their coupling?”

She smirked back and threw her arms around his shoulders before jumping up to wrap her legs around his hips, her weight sending him tipping toward the wall so that her back braced against it even as he growled and started to pull cloth out from between them. “Let’s tell him later, shall we?”

❧

When she peered out of the alcove later, all was quiet. She looked down the hall in both directions before pulling Severus out behind her, still lacing his sword belt back on. 

His mouth fell on her neck hungrily, teeth scraping at her pulse point as his tongue explored her skin. “I believe,” he whispered, “that Lucius is quite protective of the large desk in his study - it’s just around the -”

“-Stop, you irredeemable incubus,” Hermione swatted at him behind her half-heartedly, smiling. “You need to learn that, other than in the most glib of ways from time to time, you and me together is never about other people. I am not your ‘fuck you’ to wave in the face of your rivals and enemies.”

He growled into her neck, hands coming up under her still-raw tits and pinching at her nipples hard enough to draw out a gasp. “I’m simply finding power through my happiness, you wanton little succubus. Imagine how many more times I could bring you to the brink of oblivion then tease you away this evening, if only you let me  _ touch _ you.”

She laughed, running and letting him chase her into a new recessed doorway, where they lingered a while as he made a case for himself again.

❧

She stumbled away, making playful motions to fend him off as he stalked after her. “No more, you villain. You’ve defiled me enough.”

He growled. “Never enough,” closing on her and seizing her from behind. He pulled her down with him to their knees and then tore her skirt aside, sliding into her again as if magnetized to it before letting her hands fall to the floor to brace her as he worked. 

❧

###  MINISTRY OF MAGIC

Hermione’s costume was mended under her voluminous cloak, but her thighs were a sticky mess that chafed as she quietly walked down the hall in the Ministry, towing Severus behind her. He looked exhausted and hard-used, which she hoped would give some verisimilitude to their pretense. Then, she sent Moody a Patronus.

He emerged from the lift moments later, his eye whirling. “Well. He looks like he’s been through some things.”

Hermione shrugged as Severus smirked, leaning exhausted back against a wall. “All the better to make it look like no one went easy on him? Maintaining his cover is important.”

Moody shook his head then looked heavenward with both eyes. “Sweet Helga, preserve me. Alright! I’ll send someone along to scrub any … residual anything from the manor that might imply anything other than a good long interrogation left him in this state. Go take a bath, lass, you smell like a honeymoon. I’ll… I’ll throw some stinksap on this one, or something.”

Hermione gave Moody a kiss on the cheek then headed to the Lobby to Floo home.


	45. Between Costumes

###  HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Hermione was slumped half-asleep in her tub, steeping in murtlap and arnica and willowbark and persian lilac, when she heard the door open, followed by sluggish feet walking in before it closed again. 

“I’m in the bath,” she called, looking around her blearily. She’d already washed the oil and the lust away and restored her hair to the closest it ever came to normal. The weariness remained but the little aches and scratches had all gone. 

He stepped into the doorway, smiling lopsidedly. “I do not think I could tire of this sight. Even if the little twinges of jealousy  _ do _ make me want to do things to you I suspect we neither of us have the energy for at present, because I know it was someone else who made you sore.”

She blinked up at him, honestly a little surprised. “I didn’t realize you actually got jealous.”

He smiled softly and sat down on the lidded toilet. “Of course I do. But I also understand you need everything you’re taking -  _ and _ giving - right now. I’ve been there, if… more selfishly and a lot more chaotically, if I’m honest. And besides, a well-fucked woman is rather a comely commodity - and I don’t think I’ve lost you yet.” 

Her eyes searched his a long moment in silence, reading his sincerity - and a little resignation- within.

“Will I?” he eventually asked softly. “Will I lose you, Hermione?”

She barely hesitated before she shook her head and rose, wrapping herself in an enormous towel. “No. That’s… that’s why I wanted you to stay, actually.”

His sharp grey eyes were newly searching on hers. “Is it, then?”

She nodded, shuffling up to him. “I… look, you’re right, and… honestly, Sirius, it’s lovely to hear you characterize it more charitably, because more often than not, when I look at my life right now, the kindest thing I can typically say about it is that I’m a mess. But  _ you…  _ you’re here for me at least as much as I’m here for you, more. You accept me, you can… fuck it, you joke and  _ play _ with me. I trust you implicitly with things I can’t imagine how long I'd be  _ explaining _ to any other lover… there are so many things you understand without my ever having to worry that I’ve run ahead of myself, you just… you’re there, beside me, effortlessly keeping pace, never losing me even when I… when I couldn’t find myself if I tried.” She rubbed at the drips of water trickling down her face from a corner of the towel peevishly, sighing, then furrowed her brow at him. “Dammit, Sirius. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He looked up at her quietly for a moment, sitting back. “I think you may need to say this one, little vixen.”

She huffed, frightened or exasperated, but knowing he wouldn’t go to pieces over whatever she was inept about - and  _ treasuring _ that. “I’m saying… I’m saying that  _ I love you _ , you idiot. I am absolutely sodding smitten, mad-as-hatters in love with you”

He smiled slightly. Then, as she watched, the smile grew. 

She shifted her weight from foot to foot on the cool tile. “It doesn’t make me less of a mess. It doesn’t mean I’ve resolved anything else, or that I’m going to stop making you jealous.”

His smile only continued to grow, transforming his face in hope and happiness and a little bit of smug satisfaction.

She began to feel unnerved. “Alright, thanks for choosing  _ now _ to learn how to keep your mouth shut, you ridiculous mutt. Not at all awkward, that.”

He surged up and gathered her in his arms, dragging her feet up off the ground and kissing her soundly. “You must forgive me for finding you pretty when you squirm, pet.”

She growled into his shoulder, where her face was pressed by his hand stroking the back of her neck. 

He chuckled, petting down her back before starting to rub the towel all over her, drying her more efficiently than the use-it-as-a-blanket technique could. “ _ This _ is an absurd towel, by the way. I didn’t even know they came this huge. Also, I’m taking you to bed.”

She looked down at him as he bent to dry her feet, hands on her naked hips. “Oh?”

He glanced up at her, darting a quick kiss to her belly between her navel and the dark thatch of coarse hair below. “Of course. We’re going to drive each other mad a fair bit of the time, but we belong to each other now, vixen. And I suspect  _ that  _ will be the great work of my life - earning and reveling in that. I know you have more great schemes to launch before long, but wherever you are and whatever trouble you find yourself in, let me at least always be a home to you: safe for going to ground and saying what you can't elsewhere. For tonight, though…. I promise we’ll only make a  _ little _ love before I let you rest.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. He grinned up at her. 

She glowered.

_ “Yes, _ Hermione.” he said suddenly, with only the barest edge of a smirk. “Always, and  _ of course _ . Of course _ I love you _ , am  _ in _ love with you. More than Sheena - ow, fine! - more than music and magic and thunder and sex. Enough to run away, enough to stand and fight - enough to put down roots or to live hand to mouth, so long as I am with  _ you _ . Don’t look at me like you didn’t already know it - you’re far too clever to be such a fool.”

Her eyes filled with unshed tears as her shoulders dropped slightly as she exhaled. “Thank you. For what it’s worth, I am absolutely such a fool. It’s... gotten difficult to believe in good things happening to me.”

He studied her a moment, then stood, picking her up and starting toward her bed in the same motion. “I’ll help you learn to believe, then. You have your battles, and though they matter to me... you not knowing your worth?  _ That’s _ the sort of injustice _ I _ won’t stand for.”

And when he climbed under the sheets beside her after tucking her in, she suspected she believed him.


	46. 3 Years Wed, Celebrated by Proxy

### HOGSMEADE

She tugged at Alice’s jumper. It fit her, mostly, but the cut, with its little round lace collar and high waist, was unlike anything Hermione would normally wear, and it was as if the shape of it itched somehow. 

Remus bent over the small table to whisper in her ear. “Stop fretting - Alice never looks so stormy as you when you brood, you’ll blow our cover.”

She stilled and took a breath, grounding herself in the thought of Sirius insisting on helping her dress and covering her with kisses earlier in the afternoon. 

Then, she returned her attention to the _Prophet._

 _“Dark Orgy Ends in a Battle to End the War,”_ she read across the top of the front page, looking below at a photo of Moody hauling a broken-nosed Lucius Malfoy through his own home, five junior Aurors working to restrain Fenrir Greyback behind them. Lucius scowled viciously at her before the animation seemed to loop itself, with Lucius getting so close to the camera he obscured the entire frame before emerging again from the far door from the hall with Alastor behind him. 

As their pots of tea arrived with a plate of hot crumpets, butter, and lemon curd, Remus folded aside his own paper to fix her tea as Alice liked it - a little sweet but tolerable for Hermione, who appreciated the novelty of the lavender blossom tisane. He then liberally spread two crumpets for her before seeing to himself. 

He jumped with the milk pot poised over his tea as her toes skated up his shin. 

“Verisimilitude,” she breathed through a pleasant smile, stroking the tense muscles of his calf with the ball of her foot. “I’m meant to very much enjoy thanking you like this.”

Remus shook his head, pulling at his own unfamiliar collar, which wasn’t showy but remained far richer than was the norm for his clothing. “Yes, dearest. Perhaps not to be taken _too_ far, however; I can’t do that as quietly as I gather our man Frank can.” 

She pulled the sole of her foot away from his quivering inner thigh with a shrug, smirking and adjusting her broad-brimmed straw hat. “Good to know.”

Yellow flashed through his eyes as he bit down somehow defilingly into his crumpet, his eyes locked on hers.

She nibbled at her snack, looking back at the paper. “I hope Albus’s spell covers that little quirk of yours.”

“He said it would,” he replied hoarsely, loitering over licking his lips clean of butter and lemon curd at the edge of her vision. 

She experienced a little shiver herself, but continued reading to the below the fold headlines as she picked at her breakfast. _“2 Promising Undersecretaries Caught with Pants Down, Sacked,” “Handsome Advice Author Tongue-Tied After Caught In_ _Flagrante Delicto,”_ and finally, _“40 Dark Marks Rounded Up by DMLE - And One, a Hero_ and _a Scholar,”_ complete with a photo of a harassed looking Severus looking rather dashing in his armor as he exited the Ministry, rolling his eyes as a bevy of raised hands and cameras flew up in front of him - including that of a rather twitterpated-looking Rita Skeeter, whose strangely flushed and wide-eyed face flitted momentarily into frame. Then, Dumbledore stepped up behind his weary Potions Master and, with a kindly nod, grasped his shoulder and Apparated them both away.

“Isn’t he meant to be keeping a low profile?” Remus asked peevishly, seeing where her eyes lingered.

Hermione shrugged. “Insofar as he has to be present at Death Eater events, part of their society, and subject to the same sorts of investigation? Yes. But part of his value to the Dark is that he purportedly dupes Dumbledore, and if Albus didn’t bail him out, that would make him look suspect, too.”

Remus scrutinized her as she sipped her tea. “You’re certain he’s true to the Order? Beyond doubt?”

Hermione smiled a little, then spoke quietly. “Beyond the shadow of doubt. In my time, Albus was dying of a slow-acting curse that he couldn’t cure - and asked Severus to murder him to secure his place with Voldemort beyond dispute and save a child’s life. Severus did even _that_ for the order. We all hated him - McGonagall dueled him and ran him off campus, he had absolutely no one in whom he could confide, but he was the key to Voldemort’s undoing and he persevered. A shitty Potions professor, no doubt, but as great a hero as has ever lived to spite us all. I helplessly watched him die, and saw the last memories that exonerated him later. There is no doubt, Remus. He’s one of us.”

Remus sniffed. “I suppose I’ll continue to play Go with him Tuesdays down the pub, then - but I would’ve liked to have seen that duel.”

Hermione just shook her head, laughing. “I’ll decant the memory for you sometime.”

The next page held mugshots of the various Death Eaters captured. “Hmm,” she said. “Looks like Scrimgeour caught the one of the Snydes, Rookwood, and a Mr. Lee. And look, the quite dashing Shacklebolt got Amycus Carrow, Crabbe, Rosier, _and_ Karkaroff - not bad,” she mused, sipping her tea. 

Remus arched a brow at her from over the Quidditch scores - he was a much quicker reader than she. “Yes, well. I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the captures seemed to have been made by a mysterious heroic civilian who asked to remain anonymous.”

Hermione nodded, looking at the next page. “Ooo, and Skeeter didn’t like _that_ . This bit’s rife with rather scathing speculation about a duel-trained whore clad in red. It seems she may in fact have been a _fairy_ , temporarily charmed to human size and wielding a wand illegally, too. One fleeing the manor apparently chased Skeeter quite viciously - I _knew_ I liked her.”

Remus shook his head, pouring himself more tea. “A full grown witch, menaced by a tiny fairy? That’s rather sad, really.”

Hermione crunched into her second crumpet, chewing and swallowing before she answered. “Not if that _full grown witch_ is an unregistered beetle Animagus,” she said primly, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. 

Remus sat watching her, the sun catching his golden hair as it started to slant into the narrow street. A fond smile played about his lips. “That daubing thing, complete with stiff, butter-slathered upper lip, is _all_ you, you know. Alice giggles and is somehow coy about cleaning up her face when she’s made a mess of herself.”

Hermione arched a brow at him, slipping a toe up under the cuff of one of his trouser-legs in bloody-minded retribution as she smiled sweetly. “Let’s hope, then, that what’s likely is also what’s true: that none of the four who may be observing are so keen at it or so aware of our personal habits as are _you_. I suspect at least three of the four would rather watch me get you off with my foot than scrutinize the faces I make while reading the paper. Are you quite certain you couldn’t stay quiet?”

He pulled his leg further under his chair, out of her reach, clearing his throat and fighting down a flush. When he spoke, his voice was quite low. “Hermione, _when_ we are intimate, even if it should take place during this strange interlude of farce and play-acting, I _will not_ let the first time I come undone for you be on a public street in broad daylight, much less in my pants.” He sipped his tea, his eyes already on the paper again. “ I will bloody well _howl_ if I like, and _you_ will come first - preferably a great many times.”

She felt a little dazed as she licked the last bit of sticky lemon spread from her fingertips. “You… paint quite the picture. Been considering your composition for a while, haven’t you?”

He shook his head, plunking at least twice what breakfast had cost down on the table (per direction from Frank) and standing. “Not more than a hundred or three times a day.” He offered her his hand. “Shall we, my little wonderland?”

 _That_ had been per slightly more blushing instruction, from Alice. 

Hermione took his hand and stood, leaving her napkin on her empty plate as he picked up his rather rakish hat. “We shall. Very curious, after all, about this tremendous surprise you have for me,” she said, her voice carrying.

Remus pulled her in to him, grazing her neck with a kiss just below the ear before he whispered. “Don’t overdo it with the projecting - we’re not meant to know of an audience. 

Hermione squealed as if tickled and pushed him away. “You cad! Wait until it’s proper, Longbottom, _not_ in front of Madam Puddifoot’s.”

Remus let his head fall back, eyes rolling as it fell into step with her up the cobbles away from downtown. “Right. I forget sometimes that public indecency is your sole privilege, you see.”

She giggled behind a hand, remembering that Alice often did, and glanced at him from beneath her hat brim coyly. “What’s for dinner, then? I’m famished. Is that the surprise? I remember there being a sweet little bistro here somewhere…”

Remus huffed, stride lengthening to pull her along. “If I’m forever to be nicknamed Longbottom, even now it’s your name too, you must be Deeptop. I feed you and feed you and all that happens is your tits get more magnificently vast,” he groused. “I’d be out of clothes that fit after a week of such decadence - it’s not fair.”

Hermione remembered that Alice had had to write this oft-repeated little not-quarrel down, so embarrassed was she to relate it. “Well, you certainly don’t seem to mind the fringe benefits, any more than I mind your length in my bottom,” she tried to quip, mostly keeping herself from tripping into laughter-mid-sentence as she imagined the wholesome-seeming couple saying these things. Apparently Frank and Alice were actually horrendously indecent and forever engaging in foreplay-fighting and creative makeup antics when unhampered by children.

No wonder Frank had wanted to move them away from his mother, she thought, reflecting that, in general, a life guided by a banter-and-screw cycle seemed rather appealing. 

Hermione let her fingers trail down over her own rather modest bosom, glancing at Remus as coyly as she could manage in a little fit of insecurity. “Do… do you not enjoy watching them bounce?”

Remus turned around, and detecting a note of seriousness in her face, backed her into an alley and groped her thoroughly, hips pressed to her hips so that she could feel his instant response. “Nonsense. My wonderland has such pretty tits it’s a wonder I ever permit her to dress. Perfect,” he growled against her neck, “for fucking her cleavage until I come all over her pretty face. Need I fuck these pretty, firm titties right here and now to underscore my sincerity?”

Hermione gulped, losing the thread of pretending under his burning yellow-green eyes until the moment broke with the sound of a crash down the alley.

Both their wands were drawn in an instant, their backs pressed together as they assessed the area. This, too, was normal behavior for the Auror couple when startled - especially in during the War. 

They both exhaled when a rangy cat chased down the alley from between some rubbish bins, in hot pursuit of a plump black rat. 

Then Hermione, remembering something, smacked Remus’ bottom and skipped out of the alley, knowing he’d follow. “I knew it was nothing. The war’s over, Longbottom, and I want my prezzie.” Then, whispering through her teeth so softly she knew only he could hear. “Also, ‘ _titties’_ is infantilizing, so kindly refrain from making it sound so bloody _hot_ , or I fear I’ll dither about whether to _accept_ your largesse.”

“Oh,” Remus muttered, “I’ll give it to you, alright,” he growled, reaching out but not quite catching her. 

Hermione, darting ahead, tried to giggle like Alice - who, it was true, devoted a great deal less energy to brooding than she did. “Hurray! No one’s _ever_ kept anything successfully hidden from me for this long before - the anticipation is delicious, but I want delivery, please!”

Hermione’s stomach clenched as she pasted a smile on and walked backwards up the hill, looking at Remus as her hand unselfconsciously trailed down over her stomach. _Alice_ was quite _good_ at keeping secrets, by comparison to the others in her life, it seemed. To the best of her knowledge, no one in Hermione’s own time had ever known that she’d been nearly three months pregnant and harboring a surprise of her own at the time she’d been captured and tortured unto madness. When she received this confidence, Hermione had remembered the after action report on the Longbottoms’ so-called rescue: the Aurors had finally found their colleagues and fought their Death Eater-captors off, all were indiscriminately gore-spattered. No one had looked too hard at injuries before doling out potions to the victims that would have obscured the signs. 

And Alice, of course, had seldom put two words together again, after.

She wondered if their rescuers had still thought Frank and Alice would come around and be able to choose what testimony to give and what to keep private, when they were found - had they been constrained by concern for the Longbottoms’ dignity? They certainly hadn’t bothered to catalogue evidence or describe exact damage well, but it seemed clear the pregnancy had been lost. 

All the more reason, she resolved grimly, for Alice to be as far as possible (or at least as safe as possible, in the Room of Requirement) from whatever happened this weekend.

As her smile faltered, Remus caught her up, pressing his lips to hers tightly before he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, leaving her stunned a moment before she kicked her feet and hammered her fists down on his ass a bit histrionically. “You villain! Unhand me!”

“Nope!” Remus said with uncharacteristic cheer, even as a spelled scarf swooped over her eyes and stuck there, to all outside appearances blindfolding her (though of course it was spelled so that she could continue to watch his… _their_ rear). “We’re too close now, can’t risk you figuring it out. You’ll just have to trust me not to befoul your immaculate personage in any way you wouldn’t emphatically approve of in the meantime, Alice darling.”


	47. Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter seemed too short to keep for another day. Also, there's an important note at the end.

“Do you like it, then, Alice? Oh, please tell me you do - I had to get Gideon and Fabian, gods rest them, and Molly and Arthur and Dedalus to help me restore it - if I’d hired anyone, Gran would’ve cottoned on, and you know she wants us to stay. You’ll note I’ve assiduously made over  _ anything  _ that might ever have been construed as a mother-in-law apartment and turned it into something entirely unsuitable. You’ve separate transfiguration  _ and _ alchemy labs. And everything else... the elves picked everything they wanted for the kitchens - Mimsy and Boro and Grover will be joining us here, you know, and there are greenhouses, miles of them, and an old romanesque bath house complete with an unusually friendly Bannik…”

Hermione, impressed Remus had committed so much to memory, turned and laid a finger across his lips, looking up at the three-story mansion with its layers of wrapping porches and balconies. “It’s just perfect! Stop telling me things - I want to explore and find everything for myself!”

She shivered as his lips curved under the pad of her finger, his tongue darting out to lick before he sucked her into his mouth. She managed to wrest her hand free with a soft  _ pop _ of broken suction, then planted her hands on her hips. “Or do you mean to drag me straight to the bedroom?”

He shrugged. “That  _ is _ where Mimsy set the oysters…”

She thrust her hand into his. “Take me th…  _ no. _ You’re crafty, and  _ I’m _ famished, but I’ll find it -  _ after _ I look around!” she insisted, tugging her hand free again and stalking out ahead of him. 

With a laugh that distracted from the roving circuit of his searching eyes, he set out after her.

❧

Hermione and Remus made a thorough search of the estate’s foremost outbuildings and the nearest ten or so of its 50 acres. 

Only a few times did he let slip the code to say he’d smelled intruders, and each time in such a way as to indicate that they were already gone - “D’you remember, pet, when you were sitting on my face last night” once and “D’you remember, pet, when you were sitting on my face, oh, 2 or three days ago.”

Hermione only had a sense, sometimes, of something watchful and unfriendly - but couldn’t ever seem to pinpoint why. Her code, even more embarrassingly, was “Do you know, I can’t quite place what’s made me think of it, but I can’t seem to stop replaying my memory of the last time you used that one rather wicked leather paddle on me - it’s like I feel it right now, but I couldn’t say why.”

These little interludes dissolved always into the code giver absorbing themself in thoroughly kissing the code receiver around the neck, so that the recipient of both intelligence and affection had a pretext to look around and see what they could see. 

It was probably that the evil arseholes were actually that good, or it might have been that almost any hot-blooded young people would have found trying to act their way through a code of being Frank and Alice alone together distracting, but neither of them could ever detect signs where the other did. 

Then, finally, they arrived back at the house. 

Remus, who to anyone who didn’t know it was him, of course, would have looked exactly like Frank Longbottom, stretched expansively, heaving in a huge breath as they looked up at the beautiful, Victorian double doors. The house itself resembled little more than a fantastic sort of iced wedding cake, and Hermione fretted and hoped nothing that happened this weekend would spoil it for the Longbottoms. 

She noticed, out of the corner of her eye that Remus was turning his wedding band - a facsimile of Frank’s that held Dumbledore’s look-alike enchantment - a quarter turn to signal the order that they were about to enter the house itself. Then, swinging his arms as if in a continuation of his earlier pandiculation, he grinned over at her. “Say, pet, do you remember, when you were sitting on my face not more than twenty minutes ago,” he started, his eyes entirely yellow under the white panama hat.

She gasped and thwacked his forearm with the back of her hand, struggling to make her giggle sound flirtatious rather than hysterical. “Frank, I’ve done no such thing!”

He shrugged, picking her up and wrapping her legs around his waist so that he could see behind him over his tall, broad shoulder as he held her tight, scanning behind her from under his hat. “Perhaps I simply imagined it then,” he quipped, following with a whispered, “but I sure as hell  _ haven’t. _ ”

She whispered around his earlobe, which was caught between her teeth. “Turn the ring the other way. I sense that leather paddle coming down, darling, coming down fast and hard and  _ now.” _

He’d barely done it before the stunners hit them - from Disillusioned brooms directly above.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important Note: this is a Content Warning for the next couple chapters. If the chapter on apprehending Pettigrew was hard on you (24/Rat Catching), you might want to skip the next two. Chapter 48 to a lesser and 49 to a greater extent will involve the four Death Eaters who, in the original timeline, captured Alice and Frank Longbottom. Torture, rape, and violence are in the drafts. 
> 
> If you want to sit that out, I will put a note in the beginning of Chapter 50 that summarizes what happened in the broadest, least triggering strokes I can devise. You can start again there if you'd like to pick up. You can also comment with questions or concerns and I will do my best to answer without spoiling.
> 
> FWIW, some thoughts on why potentially triggering content is even in here: 
> 
> My spouse/usual proofer can't deal with reading this kind of content and we had a big conversation about it. He was raised with cis/het male, British and American expectations and I was raised with cis/het female American ones. I don't think I'm unique as an American cis woman in having started to hear stories about surviving and recognizing sexual violence before I even had sex ed class or knew all the mechanics of how sex worked. I was basically taught to brace for impact, carry keys so I could stab attackers in the eye, stomp insteps, and never walk alone at night. I've survived assault personally, but have been luckier than many in that it has been relatively minor and did not result in pregnancy risks (though having to classify any assault as "relatively minor" is its own kind of fucked up, which is another conversation). But I feel like, to cope with that, I've had to spend time wondering what could happen and imagining how I'd deal with it. Ditto harassment and abusive relationships. My spouse never has been forced to think about this stuff long enough for it to be, sadly, the regular brain background noise it is to me, and, though I don't know if this is typical or not, has a much lower tolerance for contemplating such acts in some part because of that. 
> 
> That said: I think that for people who've had the possibility, almost treated as the probability, too often treated as the RESPONSIBILITY of needing to protect themselves from predation of intimate sorts from other, often trusted human beings... for us, glossing over the fact that it happens may be less helpful than including it in fiction. I don't think this is the same as, say, rape culture as used to objectify women in male-dominated hollywood productions. I think we all sometimes need to think about our worst nightmares and how we'd move on and not talking about or thinking or reading stories about it isn't helpful. And I also think that the canonical texts that inspired this fic, taken to the adult audience this fic is intended for, leave a lot of vagueness about the evils committed by the Death Eaters because those texts are aimed at kids. And if we can keep them safe from having to worry about this, so much the better - but grown women and non-passing queer and trans people in particular seldom have that luxury.
> 
> Er. All of which is to say: do not want to drag anyone along on this who will not find cathartic and/or entertainment value - and DEFINITELY not anyone who it will hurt. Trying not to write gratuitously about a real problem and hoping y'all understand why I believe this isn't that. Also, er, probably more typos.


	48. The Lover’s Noose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:
> 
> Torture  
> Sexual Assault
> 
> If such content is triggering to you, please wait to read until Chapter 50 is published to resume reading. I will include as innocuous as possible a recap in a note at the beginning of that chapter so that you don't need to read 48 (this chapter) or 49 (the next).

When Hermione opened her eyes, it was to blink up into the light of a lamp swinging from a rough, unfinished rafter overhead. She squirmed a little, finding herself bound with more idiosyncratic ropes than those summoned by  _ Incarcerous _ (so someone had, for some reason, chosen a different sort and gone to the trouble of purchasing and tying them manually). She also determined that she lay on a dirt floor with a thin, old scattering of straw. The ceiling was far away - a barn, perhaps? They’d seen a couple such buildings in the distance, as they walked.

She forgot to continue taking stock of her surroundings for a moment in sheer relief when she heard Remus moan, making the similar ropes that restrained  _ him  _ creak as he tested his bonds. 

She could barely manage to crane her neck far enough to see him, sitting with his back propped against a thick beam that disappeared up into a hay loft. It was then that she noticed that, as he moved, a length of rope that looped around her own throat tightened. She coughed, blinking in surprise - and he stopped, immediately looking over at her and trying to shimmy in her direction. 

“Merlin, Her…mm, ahem…” he coughed, cutting himself off as he glanced around. “I worried we might have been separated, darling. Are you alright?”

She squinted in the dimness, and the rope around her neck loosened as she recognized another loop of the same material rather distinctively tied around Remus’s. “My dear, we seem to have a … a Lover’s Noose strung between us,” she gasped, feeling immediately claustrophobic as her eyes darted around the room. 

At which point she heard a slow clap and a dark, low laugh as Bellatrix Lestrange stepped out of a darkened doorway, her husband Rodolphus close behind her. In this age, before the ravages of Azkaban, they made a striking couple - and Hermione wondered, not for the first time,  _ why _ this entire generation of young adults was so pixies-poxed  _ attractive _ . 

But not for long. 

“The little slip of a witch knows not just the paddle but the noose, then?” Bellatrix shook her head, looking down at Hermione as she stepped up beside her head. “I would never have guessed you had it in you, Alice my sweet. Imagine how scandalized we all were, listening to you as you muddled about the grounds today! The filth from your mouths made you almost  _ interesting _ .” 

Hermione darted a glance back at Remus, who was tensed to fight but kept looking back at her, certain he was missing something. 

Hermione shook her head. “My dove, you must not struggle - if either of us does, it’ll cause the noose on the other to tighten. I saw one, once, in that shop - you know?” She blushed, remembering the day - a long, long time from now - when in fact she had. “It’s… it’s meant to have a point of failure, as a sort of lover’s game, bringing about only enough asphyxia to induce pleasure and typically not double-ended, but linked to one wearer’s own struggling… to… to intensify orgasm, but…”

“...but  _ this _ one was gifted me by the Dark Lord himself, and is for more serious games, sweet girl - with, as you have guessed, no failure point,” Bellatrix finished, crouching down to look at her face with curiosity. “Hmmm. A shame you’re such a goody goody. I’d have liked another woman who appreciates a firm paddling to add to our bedroom routines, wouldn’t you, Rodolphus?”

“Indeed,” he murmured, running his eyes over Alice’s - Hermione’s - body. “But our interrogation today need not rely entirely on  _ Crucio  _ for its efficacy, my raven-dark angel.”

Bellatrix’s face lit up in a way that made Hermione flinch. “You’re absolutely right, my dear! How shall we begin?”

Rabastan, a somewhat more dashingly dressed Lestrange and Rodolphus’s brother, sauntered into the room. “I volunteer, whatever it is. I’m terribly helpful like that.”

Bellatrix sneered, but it resolved in a smile. “Alright, then. Have your pick.”

The younger, longer-haired man, urbane and quick to smile in a way that reminded her distantly of Sirius, crouched down beside Hermione, who immediately and unthinkingly rolled to turn her back to him. “Tch, tch,” he scolded, pulling her firmly back onto her back and seeming to make a thorough inventory of her body with his eyes. “Well, now. I see some promise here.” He reached delicately down and quite gently took her left nipple between his thumb and forefinger, through her jumper, before looking back up to her eyes. “Now, Mrs. Longbottom,” he drawled, easing himself down to sit on the dirt beside her. “Where have the Aurors put Lord Voldemort, our Dark Lord?”

She shivered with terror as she discerned, in his fathomless black eyes, that he did not  _ want _ her to know.

Still, as Rodolphus had circled slowly around to stand beside Remus, she had to answer. “I… I don’t know. We had nothing… to do with it. Lily… they say Lily Potter…”

He tugged up hard and fast, actually lifting her head and shoulders off the ground and then letting them fall back again, leaving her nipple and breast in agony. “Now, now,” he said, even as she started to panic through her tears at the noose tightening around her neck as Remus tried to suppress the need to struggle. “Surely no little mudblood slut, taken unawares, could have vanquished our Lord through, what? The power of  _ love?” _ He laughed, and Bellatrix, who had wandered over to survey Remus beside Rodolphus, laughed with him. 

Hermione looked up at Rabastan, feeling her temper begin to rise. “That’s precisely what she did, you ignorant wretch, not that I expect any of you sociopathic monsters could understand it. Maybe mummy and daddy didn’t love you - maybe you were too strictly molded into some inbred archetype of blood purity trash - maybe Voldemort scrambled your frontal lobes a little too hard with one of his little Legilimency sessions - but you wouldn’t understand love or its power if it danced naked in front of you wearing nothing but a tea cozy!”

With a little growl, though his smile still seemed sincerely in place, Rabastan backhanded her across the face. Then again. 

The world wobbled on his axes for her as she tried to recollect herself, not least because the rope had twitched tighter again. But just as things began to clear, Rabastan was in her face - too close.

“Oh, perhaps I don’t know much of love, little blood-traitor, but I  _ do _ know about fucking and pleasure - and so do you, it would seem! And I, at least, know about more than just  _ playing  _ at pain. I wonder, whatever games you dip into together, if you and your darling husband here really know the first thing about that. How would you like never to be able to differentiate one from the other, ever again?” he purred, licking across the tightly-closed line of her lips. “Because I can give that to you,  _ pet _ . I can make a lover’s touch burn you so badly you’ll never be able to abide it willingly again. Please do keep resisting - I’ll be terribly disappointed if I can’t.”

Bellatrix, meanwhile, had sat astride Remus’s lap, where she was examining the musculature of his arms with her hands appreciatively. “Let’s not put all our stock in that one, ‘Bastan. This one’s got quite a bit more to him than one would expect. And something wild, dangerous in his eyes. I won’t be denied my own opportunities to play.”

_ ‘Bastan _ shrugged, toying gently with Hermione’s other nipple, now, as he looked over at Bellatrix and Remus. “Do what you will then.”

“Do you know where my Lord and Lover hides, then, Blood Traitor?” she cooed into Remus’s neck. “No? Then perhaps, “she said, pointing her wand directly down between them toward his lap, “ _ Crucio!” _

Hermione had only a moment of blind panic to see every muscle in Remus’s body go taut in anguish, to hear him scream, before the rope cut off her blood and air and she passed out.

❧

When Hermione blinked awake, some indeterminate period of time later, she couldn’t decide if she was grateful or despairing to find herself still more or less intact, beside Remus on the dirt barn floor. 

Remus’s breath was ragged, and his eyes were yellow-flecked in pain, but he noticed her waking immediately and kept his voice quite low and calm. “Thank Godric you’re safe. I’m so… so  _ terribly _ sorry,” he murmured, shivering. 

Hermione noticed that his knees were spread wide, as if to take any pressure off the offended area. She remembered how it felt, but never… never anywhere like  _ that _ . “Are you going to be alright?” she whispered.

He nodded, swallowing thickly before he spoke again. “The time to worry… is when it starts feeling like something other than pain. That’s when your nerves are becoming permanently damaged, at least without rapid Healer attention. That, or when you’re numb - which tends to flicker for victims of ongoing Cruciatus torture between numbness and excruciating pain for the rest of their lives. No one knows why some people go one way, and others, the other. We… we learned about it, in the Order.”

Hermione nodded slowly. “And then… decided not to teach more new inductees because the vigilante dread did nothing to make it easier to hold up under torture, I surmise?”

Remus nodded again, his wry smile forced. “Sorry. You, like me, like to know things, and … it blows my filters to hell. Goddesses and garden gnomes, I’m sorry I’ve been such a prancing wanker to you lately, Her... _ Alice _ .” 

She glanced across the large open space, seeing a doorway into an area with stalls with four shadows apparently arguing in low tones within. “It’s alright,” she said, finally. “No one to hear you. But… you can hear them, yes?”

He nodded, wriggling to rotate himself around the beam to which he was tied until his legs lay out along her torso. The warmth of him was comforting and she folded toward it as much as she could. 

“Em… Young Barty Crouch, it seems, transfigured some Cornish Pixies into facsimiles of our Death Eater hosts and handed them wands before letting them wander about the grounds. Actually a brilliant piece of magic, if you’re an agent of chaos who wants shit indiscriminately blown up,” he growled, shaking his head. “But our allies have been rather distracted trying to contain them, and haven’t made it anywhere close to here yet. The Lestranges, meanwhile, couldn’t make the barn  _ quite  _ Secret without the consent of its owners, but they did everything short of it. It’s going to take more concentration than Sirius, Dedalus, and Mad-Eye can muster to crack it with little recently-blue fiends they  _ believe  _ to be the Death Eaters they came for firing on them.”

Hermione shook her head, wearily. “And the others are out there, but staying out of sight, too.”

Remus shrugged. “That was the plan. There are a variety of reasons Dumbledore is tied up at the Ministry after that little Soiree, and if Alex, Frank, Narcissa, or Severus were spotted… bad things would likely ensue.”

“I’m still shocked Narcissa got up this morning and decided to be here _ at all _ ,” Hermione murmured. Then she sighed, looking up at him. “Well. So much for consummating our little will-they,-won’t-they drama this weekend,” she said, nodding toward his groin. “I doubt I could so much as put my head in your lap without sending you through the roof.”

Remus gritted his teeth, eyes blazing as he looked down at her. “I heal  _ fast _ ,” he ground out. 

She chuckled, nuzzling his shoulder. “We should rest while we can. They won’t be bickering forever.”

Remus inhaled deeply. “At least you still smell sublime.”

She blinked. “I do? Here in the dirt, sweating noxious fear from every pore?”

He nodded. “Like the restricted section and sex and spilled ink.”

She let that soak in a moment. “Huh. I had no idea.”

He shrugged again. “Outside extreme circumstances, I suspect I wouldn’t have brought it up until the sex had been  _ with me, _ alas. But yes. You are exquisite. I could know nothing of your brilliance, your kindness, your bent sense of humor, your courage - and still need to have you simply for the way you  _ smell _ .”

She shivered a little. “Let’s not flirt while torture is underway, shall we?”

He smiled, looking strange and free and sad. “Not flirting, Hermione.  _ Confessing _ . If I die here and you live, I want you to know that it was worth it to me just to have lived to inhale you, to drag the scent of you over my tongue. If I die here, you need to know I would have found courage for you. Healed for you. Gladly died for you, if it comes to it. Could have loved you recklessly enough to set ballads strumming around the world, had we only the  _ time. _ ” 

She gulped, looking up into his entirely-green eyes. “Well, then I have a charge for you, you great romantic idiot.”

“Oh?” he asked.

She nodded. “ _Live_ for me. If you can’t find it in yourself to do it _for_ _yourself_ , for now, I’ll settle for you doing it for me. Come out of this whole for me, you moronic moon-eyed twit, and I’ll let you drag your too-sharp nose all over me until you can’t stand the smell of me a moment longer.”

He shook his head. “Could never happen.”

She winced a little, an accidental brush of their shoulders unexpectedly jarring her bruised breast. “Oh, I don’t know, Remus. You haven’t even met your  _ wife _ yet.”

He stilled, looking down at her. “Is that why you keep pushing me away?” he asked softly.

She shrugged. “That and that you need to make peace with yourself before you can love  _ anyone  _ so much as pine. But the two of you were both my friends. And … you were good together.”

He looked into the distance a moment, eyes unfocused. “And… was she like me, like you are? Or… is she? Will she be?”

She thought a long moment, then shook her head. “Not… really. But you worked together.”

He shrugged. “I believe you, but please believe me that, knowing you the little bit I have come to, I cannot imagine any other partner could not help but leave me feeling quite alone and misunderstood in the world.”

Hermione gazed up at him, gnawing her lip. “Sirius could. He understands me, and you say you’re like me. Maybe we could work out a schedule for sharing.”

Remus snorted. “It’d kill my dad.”

Hermione frowned, glancing down. “Remus… he already hasn’t got long. I know you love him, but he’s an abusive ass, and I need you to understand that soon, you may regret not living for what  _ you _ wanted.”

Remus sucked in a breath, sitting up straighter. “Shit.”

Hermione cringed, screwing her eyes shut. “Sorry. That was incredibly callous of me. Em, but also, Severus might look good on you if he fancies men.”

“Hermione!” Remus hissed, looking actually rather angry at her. 

She shrugged, squirming away a bit as the rope twitched on her neck. “It’s true! But I don’t know that he does.”

Remus groaned. “Why don’t you just build us all a huge harem to live in, then? Maybe throw Narcissa in there for giggles - and am I actually to understand that Kingsley  _ sodding  _ Shacklebolt has asked you out?” He rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, stretching his neck. “Honestly, you’re such a little brainbox, between brain and box I’m sure you could figure out how to have us all at once.”

Hermione knit her brow. “That’s not funny.”

“Who said it was?!” he growled. “Do I look like I’m having fun? You make me want to eviscerate someone who  _ you _ pointed out should be my friend and someone who  _ is _ my last friend and  _ ought _ to be my lover every time you waltz past, marinating in their jizz! I’m not all… all complicated like you, and like Sirius. I don’t get it. I mean, I get it, but I don’t get  _ needing  _ it all at once.  _ Us _ all at once.”

Hermione shut her eyes, pained. “I don’t either. I’ve never been like this, Remus. I’d only honestly ever had good sex a couple times before I wound up here -  _ now _ . Any one of you is more than I deserve or ever dreamt of having.”

He made a little frustrated noise. “Wrong! None of us add up to one miserable fraction of what you deserve, you daft witch. But all of us still want  _ all  _ of you. It’s a dreadful tangle and I have no idea how it ends.”

“Me neither,” she sniffled, “And I really  _ am _ sorry.”

He was quiet a long moment as she wept, tears streaming silently down her face. “As fate would have it, knowing that you are as confused and uncalculating about it all as, well,  _ me _ , makes me feel quite the ass for confronting you about it all when we may well die. And considerably less jealous, because damned if I know how the fuck you resolve all these tensions.”

She sniffled, trying to gather herself. “With time, I hope.”

And then they realized the yelling in the stalls had stopped, and looked over to see three dark silhouettes in the doorway, watching them.

“Look at that, then,” Rabastan said, amused. “Just leaving them here like this tortured them, too.”

Bellatrix shrugged, coming over and sinking onto Remus’s lap again, ignoring his flinches. “Less fun, though.”

Hermione gathered herself and spoke. “Your Lord is gone, less than living and less than dead, and  _ even if _ by some miracle one of us  _ could _ ,  _ neither _ of us  _ would _ produce him for you even if it cost us our lives. You  _ might _ be able to barter your escape for our safe return -  _ might _ \- but I think you’d rather turn this into some pyrrhic platform of your devotion, Bellatrix. Even your sisters - yes,  _ both _ your sisters - know you’ve gone mad. So do what you like - much good will it do you - and crash about in that scrambled mind of yours until someone turns the lights out for you. I only  _ wish _ it could be me,” she spat.

Bellatrix looked at Hermione a long moment, then, looking bored and disappointed, pointed her wand.  _ “Crucio!” _

And Hermione screamed until everything went black.


	49. Despair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:
> 
> Rape  
> Torture  
> Death threats  
> Force marriage and pregnancy threats  
> Violence
> 
> If such content is triggering to you, please wait to read until Chapter 50 (the next chapter) is published to resume reading. I will include as innocuous as possible a recap in a note at the beginning of that chapter so that you don't need to read this.

She woke in pain, struggling to breathe, with her knees beneath her and her face pressed into the floor. 

“Oh, just tell us, Frank - be a pet and tell us,” Bellatrix crooned, “and I’ll make the bad men stop.”

Hermione tensed when she realized her skirt had been hitched up and her knickers were gone, and then she heard breathing behind her - two people breathing. Felt, in fact, warm, humid breath on her bare skin as someone  _ far  _ too close examined her helplessly exposed private places.

“I …  _ please _ , not her. I would  _ tell _ you if I knew anything, can’t you see that?  _ She’s _ the brave one.” Hermione heard rustling and movement, but the second she tried to turn her head, her face was pushed hard into the dirt. Remus, meanwhile, sounded increasingly frantic. “Hurt  _ me _ , if you must - maybe she  _ does  _ know something she’d tell you, I know she wouldn’t want to see me hurt - and I’m beyond caring, now, don’t you see? Please, please, just don’t hurt  _ her.” _

And that was when she, with a jolt of panic, felt unwelcome pressure against her exposed thresholds - both - and jerked involuntarily forward with a an jerk of her knees - only for strange, cold hands to immediately grasp her hips and yank them back hard, stilling them so she could hardly move. 

“Mmm,” Bellatrix said, “Let me just say that the two of them have a great deal of practice coordinating this sort of thing under my direction. I do  _ so _ love both to watch and be spoiled, you know. Are you sure you don’t want to tell us how to reach our Lord, and to free him from your filthy Order’s machinations? I will not, of course, permit you to close your eyes once it begins.”

_ “Please,”  _ Hermione heard Remus sob, even as she sank the thought of Albania deep in her mind, as hidden behind loops and walls and dead ends as she could, even as cold, sharp-nailed fingers prodded at and spread her, “Please, I don’t _ know!” _

She dimly saw Bellatrix’s shadow on the wall shrug. “Well, then we might as well soften her up for questioning. Uh uh - no turning away. Watch now, Mr. Longbottom. Watch what they do to her. This is one of my  _ favorite _ parts.”

Hermione cried out as, without warning, she was roughly, doubly breached. Both the men behind her - the brothers, she presumed - seemed only to be encouraged by the dry tightness they encountered, pushing hard against her resistance, tearing at her, until one, the one who seemed to have a clammy grip on her shoulders, with a last hard push was buried deep in her burning, torn ass, and moments later the other, pulling at her hips and grunting against her tight refusal, adjusted angles and was able to slip deep into her shuddering, clenched cunt.

She felt her eyes begin to stream again, and managed to look up only to see Remus gaping in horror, his own weeping in full view as Bellatrix grinned over his shoulder, her wand hovering near his temple. “Ahhh, yes,” she purred. “It’s her first time, don’t you see? These are the ones I like best. They always think it could  _ never  _ happen to them, until it does - you can see if all plain as writing on her face. But it won’t really be real until…”

And as she trailed off, Rodolphus and Rabastan who had stilled in their initial seats of hard-sunk triumph, started to withdraw… then surge into her again. In moments, they established a counterpoint rhythm, rutting jerkingly in and out of her as their grimey hands wandered, scraping her raw inside as she reflexively tried to push them out. She whimpered and moaned despite herself, trying to squirm away with little shufflings of her knees even as hands knotted in her hair and obscene moans of pleasure resounded through her from unwelcome mouths pressed into her cringing flesh.

She couldn’t get anywhere, and they continued, laughing. “Well, well, aren’t you lucky, Mr. Longbottom?” came Rabastan’s voice. “Salazar, she’s so tight it’s little wonder you only ever seem to talk about getting your end in. Is this how you like to take her? Is there some other position she’s even better for? We'll try them all anyway, you know.”

Hermione started to sob in earnest, feeling like the tearing extended into her soul as one cold hand reached around to pinch sharply at her clit in a mockery of care, making her cry out.

Bellatrix, on the other hand, smiled more and more. “Do you know, Frank, what I do when I want to give the boys a little treat? Do you? Tell me now, tell me where he is, and I won’t make you watch. No? Then…  _ Crucio!” _

The curse caught Hermione on her naked spine, making anguish zing erratically all over her nervous system as every muscle in her tensed painfully, convulsively, and - 

“Fuck if that isn’t the tightest little hole I’ve ever had.” Rodolphus drawled, slurring in pleasure, a splash of spittle dropping repulsively from his mouth to her back. “Oh,  _ fuck _ , Trix, more!”

“Yessssss, you little blood traitor bitch, you will milk my cock for every drop like a good little slut, now, and maybe I’ll slit your throat fast when this is done. Or maybe I’ll fuck that little mouth of yours, first. You know what? Maybe we just  _ keep _ you for rainy days.  _ Yesssss. _ Yes, maybe we off your man there and  _ I’ll _ marry you, what do you think? Make me a nice little brood to salvage your family’s blood, let them get fat off that magnificent rack of yours, grow up to get marks of their very own…”

Hermione couldn’t  _ breathe,  _ her nose stuffy and her jaw clenched shut.. It felt like every thrust from behind her was a dull knife’s jab as Bellatrix sustained the spell, the red light crackling into Hermione’s body like Fiendfyre licking up and down her nerves. Remus was bawling, his eyes never leaving hers.

She slowly, slowly mastered her jaw, opening it, and  _ tried  _ to form a word around her bitten, aching tongue. Then she tried  _ again _ , trying to ignore the ungentle ministrations of the Death Eater monsters spearing inside her, of the bitch who carved her arm directing it all. And finally, she got it, looking Remus in the eye.  _ “Struggle.”  _ she rasped. 

And, immediately understanding, he did - bringing blessed darkness down on her through the noose that tightened around her neck. 

❧

_ “Enervate!  _ Fuck, fuck, fuck, we  _ need  _ her memory, dammit.  _ Enervate _ , you delicate little blood traitor bitch!”

She blinked awake, groaning, her open mouth pressed to dirt, bleeding tongue lolling. Body aching, tearing, gyrating. Not enough time had passed. The Lestrange brothers, it seemed, would just as delightedly keep on raping a corpse, for all she’d almost  _ been  _ one, just now. 

But the nooses were cut away from her and Remus's necks, now, lying in the single area of stark light just under the hanging lamp. 

She tried to concentrate not on the fingernails digging into her soft hips, or the hands clawing into her breasts, but on Remus’s green-yellow eyes. Not on a grotesque violation but on hope of life. She saw, though, that Bellatrix was raising her too-familiar knotted wand again. 

It was Rabastan who saved her, absurdly. “Not yet, Bells. Fuck, she’s  _ perfect _ , just like this. Hell, I really do think I’ll keep this one.”

Bellatrix looked irritated, but lowered her wand away. “I suppose you can have her, as she’s deigned to survive. Maybe even to wed, under Imperius or enough well-applied Legilimency. Good luck with  _ that _ , though, if we can’t find  _ him _ . Snivelus certainly won’t do it for you, above it all as he is.”

Hermione shuddered, reaching to remember the deep well of rage in the fairie she helped… it seemed a lifetime ago, but it had only been last night. 

“Moony,” she croaked, flinching from an unwelcome tongue dragging over the back of her neck, feeling herself near the end of the reservoir from which need could draw strength despite trauma, injury, and exhaustion.  _ “Struggle.” _

Remus went still, looking at her in confusion, even as Bellatrix, still astride him, laughed. “Oooooh no no no, I’ve cut the rope - unless you want to tell me where  _ he _ is, you’ll get no more relief, you -”

But by then, Remus had torn the ropes that bound his wrists and ankles with a burst of supernatural strength. In the next moment, he hurled a shocked Bellatrix Lestrange against the wall, where she blinked in surprise and, strangely,  _ smiled _ before losing consciousness as she slid down.

Remus stood, his silhouette shimmering somehow with a distortion of strange magic. 

And then, with a jolt, Hermione's knees wobbled out from under her and slid apart, leaving her on her stomach in the straw and dirt, emptied, bruised, and bleeding, as she shuddered at the screams behind her. Screams that gave way to thick sounds of impact and tearing behind her and a thick, hot splatter on her bare thighs. 

She vaguely registered a roar of anguish as the roof above them exploded, wheeling in enormous chunks up into the sky, followed by a deluge of red sparks.

She saw a blood-drenched avenging angel with a wand in hand over her shoulder, then heard a yell - a young, male voice - as some new person dashed through the door.

And then all went black. 


	50. Break/Heal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings**
> 
> Trauma recovery (not explicit)  
> Revelations of childhood abuse in adult characters
> 
> **Summary of last two chapters, if you had to skip them:**
> 
> _CW: includes factual but non-graphic descriptions of torture and rape_
> 
> Hermione and Remus were captured by the Lestranges and Barty Crouch, Jr, and tied up and held in a disused old barn. A magical rope was used that tightened around the neck of either if the other struggled, which discouraged escape attempts. Both captives were subject to mundane physical harm and the Cruciatus curse under Bellatrix's direction, and their affection for each other was used to try to get them to reveal where Voldemort could be found. 
> 
> During a lull while the captors were arguing, Remus and Hermione (thanks to werewolf hearing) learned that Barty Crouch, who was responsible for distracting and repelling the Order members searching for their comrades, had tricked them and held them off by transfiguring Cornish Pixies to resemble the Death Eater quartet and handing them wands. Meanwhile, Remus and Hermione had time to have a fraught conversation, which included:
> 
> \- Remus apologizing for being "such a prancing wanker" lately  
> \- Remus saying how attracted to and interested he is in Hermione  
> \- Hermione saying it's not a great time to flirt  
> \- Remus saying: "Not flirting, Hermione. Confessing. If I die here and you live, I want you to know that it was worth it to me just to have lived to inhale you, to drag the scent of you over my tongue. If I die here, you need to know I would have found courage for you. Healed for you. Gladly died for you, if it comes to it. Could have loved you recklessly enough to set ballads strumming around the world, had we only the time."  
> \- Hermione calling him a romantic idiot and saying that if he could only think of things to do for her rather than himself, she'd settle for him determining to live through this for her instead.  
> \- A discussion about how part of Hermione's reticence to get more involved with Remus is knowledge of his marriage in her future another part is how good she thinks he and Sirius would be together  
> \- Remus losing his temper when she says he could actually hit it off with Snape, too, if he were bi, which she doesn't know  
> \- Remus making a bitter joke about frustration with her not figuring out a romantic direction and suggesting bitterly that she should start a harem  
> \- Hermione saying she's frustrated too and has no precedent or idea of how to proceed through her current romantic boondoggle, then apologizing and crying
> 
> The end of this conversation was interrupted by the returning Lestranges, and chapter 48 ended with her passing out in pain from a curse.
> 
> In Chapter 50, Hermione was raped by Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange while being magically tortured by Bellatrix. Rabastan considered aloud the possibility of keeping her alive and marrying her to use her (supposedly pure) blood status to create heirs under some form of mind control. 
> 
> Hermione managed to signal Remus to struggle twice - the first time causing him to make the rope around her neck tighten enough to make her pass out. After she was revived and found the rope had been removed to prevent her accidental harm or escape from awareness, she asked him to struggle once more - which made him realize he could now use his supernatural strength to free himself and take the others by surprise. He did so, quickly incapacitating them, before Hermione lost consciousness again.

###  HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY - NOVEMBER 25, 1981

The first thing she noticed was the breeze. There was fresh, cool air, redolent of fallen leaves and pine sap and sun. and it was moving over her face. 

It tasted  _ wonderful _ , she thought, taking another, deeper breath. 

“There, I thought that might help - thank Circe it’s so unseasonably warm today. Step  _ aside _ , if you please, Severus -  _ Salazar _ , if she wakes now, how do you suppose being crowded will make her feel?”

The voice was familiar, low and melodic and authoritative even as a whisper. It was also nurturing and a little frightened - those two things shattering any similarity it might have had to - 

_ No.  _ No _. We aren’t going to go there, not right now. _

Another steadying breath, and she tried to open her eyes. It felt like she had all but forgotten how.

But they cracked a bit, letting sunlight in. 

Everything was bright - oh, thank Godric, it was  _ light _ , and … and there was a blonde woman batting away a man who kept stepping close to help, and … a blonde man in a chair at the end of the bed, his head resting on folded arms beside her feet, asleep. And under her hand… her hand fisted in…

“Do I have a dog?” she heard herself ask, hoarse, blinking to focus on the blonde woman. 

Who came close, brushing Hermione’s hair gently out of her face and smiling at her. “Oh, my dear. I’m afraid you’ve a veritable pack of them - of  _ us _ , perhaps - but that one’s Sirius. He’s been with you like that since we brought you back.”

Hermione blinked.  _ “Narcissa?”  _ she asked, hearing her own tired disbelief.

Narcissa dashed away a few tears, then conjured herself chair, pulling it up beside the head of the bed and gently taking Hermione’s hand in both of hers. “Yes. I… well, I took your advice on the Charms post. Draco and I are here, now, and as I also know some midwifery, I’ve been helping Poppy get you well.” She freed one hand just long enough to drag it across her eyes again. “Hermione, I’m so, so sorry. If I’d had any idea…”

Hermione shook her head. “Frank and Alice… safe?”

Narcissa hesitated a moment and then nodded, mustering a weak smile. “Well… yes, thanks to you and… and Remus.”

“And… the bastards?”

Narcissa blinked, surprised, then nodded. “My brother-in-law is dead. Rabastan was gravely injured, and has lost… much… but may yet survive. Bellatrix was dosed with the Draught of Living Death, as was Bartemius Crouch, Junior, and both are in Azkaban awaiting trial, for which they may be woken.”

Hermione squinted, still trying to adjust to the light. “New.”

Narcissa looked puzzled. “I’m sorry?”

A lower, rougher voice near her feet spoke. “Using the potion is new, yes. It was Dumbledore’s idea.”

Green eyes looked mournfully up at her as Remus hesitated, sliding his chair back a bit from the bed… she realized, belatedly, to give her space. 

She was unnerved to feel somewhat comforted by that.

Severus steeped smoothly around him, kneeling across her bed from Narcissa. “I mixed the Draught myself. I remember, from your memories, how much grandstanding they did in the original trial, and how much of a call it was to remaining Death Eaters to bide their time and not give up. Dumbledore is fighting at least to close the trial to the public, in light of that and what was done to you, and in light of… in light of what would almost certainly come to light about Lupin.”

Hermione closed her eyes, processing and nodding, and then opening them to look around again with improved focus. She noticed a strange bouquet on her nightstand and looked questioningly at Narcissa, who shrugged. 

“They’re from an Auror with an appreciation for the old-fashioned - garlic flowers, blue hyacinths, white heather… em…white poppy and blue violets. A rather difficult mix to arrange prettily but a valiant effort has been made. Basically they convey condolences, respect, apologies, steadfastness, and such stuff. He’s Sacred 28, which is likely why he’s versed in such things - a Mr. Shacklebolt,” she mused. “Strange I haven’t met him.”

“He’s… really more in Longbottom circles, Narcissa,” said a softer feminine voice - Alice was here, then. 

Narcissa stiffened a moment, then nodded, standing and busying herself with tidying potions and medical whatnots on a rolling cart beside the bed. 

Alice looked down at Hermione with swimming eyes, standing between Remus and Severus. “I should never, ever have let you go there for me.”

Hermione looked up at her friend, finding it in her to smile. “Best choice I ever made in my life. But all the rehearsed smutty-speak was a bit weird.”

Alice made a noise between a laugh and a cry, then fished fruitlessly for a handkerchief. The large black dog lying along the length of Hermione’s side, meanwhile, sneezed.

Hermione shook her head, looking down at him. “It wasn’t  _ my _ smuttyspeak, you mutt,” she murmured, reaching down to scratch his ear and pointedly ignoring how Severus stilled and Remus looked away. 

Then she looked up again at Alice. “Really,” she said, wishing she had a handkerchief to lend before glaring around. “Seriously, have none of you a hanky?” She shook her head as Narcissa, Severus, and Remus all immediately offered theirs - Alice hesitantly took Remus’s, but then only started crying loudly, shouldering past the werewolf to throw herself across Hermione’s feet.

“I’m so sorry,” she wailed, just as Hermione realized with relief that nothing hurt when she was jounced so. 

Hermione frowned. “Alice, I’m serious. I feel so much better already. Am I alright, Narcissa?” she asked, turning. 

Narcissa nodded stolidly. “As well as ever. Perfect. I would not accept anything less. You’ll… you’ll need a new Muggle device or some other form of birth control and anemia relief, which I can help you with in the next few days, but you remain intact and should encounter no further difficulties despite some initial trouble with…  _ well _ . But you’re fine now. But… that’s your body. Minds are harder. Oh, and you’re not to teach until the term starts in the New Year - Dumbledore’s away for a Ministry to-do, but has been in here as much as almost anyone else, fretting, and he and Alice have worked out how things will go in the meantime.”

Hermione shrugged. “I’ll work with Charity,” she said, more breezily than she felt about the subject, attempting  _ not  _ to imagine what  _ that _ would be like.

Remus looked up again, now standing at the foot of her bed, awkward and oozing guilt. “Charity has been here reading meditations to you several times a day, casting spells to hasten your ability to compartmentalize. She didn’t dare do more than give you the space to confront things on your own terms before you woke, though.”

Narcissa hesitated a long moment, then said, “And… those of us who have been through things like what you experienced are here to help you, too.”

Hermione blinked, feeling fully awake, as Sirius, too, held his head up and nodded. She was suddenly horrified. “What… both of you?”

Narcissa struggled not to sneer. “Funny Uncles are a common pureblood family eccentricity, I’m afraid.”

Hermione slumped down, shaking her head. “Jesus.”

Remus chuckled a little at the Muggleism, and Severus tensed a bit. Then, a moment later, the Potions Master impulsively snatched up her hand in his. 

Which made her cry out, tugging away, and Sirius and Remus both jump to attention, snarling.

Severus backed away, pale, hands up before him, stricken. “I… apologize. I did not… I  _ should  _ have known. I am sorry, Hermione. And… and Sirius, Remus.”

The dogs called off, they started, though more warily, to settle again. Hermione remembered to resume breathing after a minute, then looked back to Alice, who was seated and quiet, shocked into having stopped crying. 

“Look…” Hermione said, “I … am going to have work to do. But I don’t  _ blame  _ any of you -” As she petted Sirius, she glanced at Alice then Remus, who was avoiding her eyes, “any of you at all, for what happened. Merlin’s pants, it sounds like even Bellatrix may have started her long slide to torture as a victim,” she trailed off, watching Narcissa’s shoulders tense, head nodding once, even as she continued to busy herself with the cart.

Hermione pressed back into her pillows - there was a cunningly-arranged mountain of them she somehow knew had to have been Narcissa’s doing holding her up. 

“So,” she said, casting about for another subject. “Em. Narcissa’s Charming, of course - anything else new? What of the other posts?” she asked, more than ready to move on. 

Alice smiled, hitching a hip up onto the bed and offering her hand, which Hermione took. “I’ll be teaching Transfiguration with you - and we moved into the house, but, em, burned the barn down and then threw some fireballs at it for good measure before sinking the earth it stood on to start a koi pond-”

Hermione perked up. “-A koi pond? With the great big goldfish?”

Alice nodded, “Exactly, with some water lilies and a moon bridge and some rhododendrons - and a little gazebo for tea.”

Hermione nodded, smiling. “I like that.”

Alice beamed, “I’m so glad to hear it - and, anyway, it’s got to be the most warded place other than here on the planet, so Draco and Narcissa are living in one of the cottages, actually right near the pond, and Draco is coaxing Neville into using his words more while they chase dragonflies-”

“-and regularly get  _ filthy.”  _ Narcissa cut in, scowling over her shoulder.

“-and get filthy, as is right and proper for small children,” Alice agreed, unbothered.

Narcissa wrinkled her nose, turning to her fellow mother. “ _ I _ never got filthy, and I turned out perfectly.”

A number of faces looked elsewhere a moment, while Alice smiled indulgently. Hermione reached up to take Narcissa’s hand. “I’ll find you some dirt you like. Just give me the chance, and I promise you’ll get on better with it.”

“Oooo, love a little mud, I do, perfect for the skin!” came a cheery, familiar voice as someone new bustled in between Alice and Remus, smiling fondly down at her and offering a hand. “So very very glad to hear you were up, dearie, I hear I have you to thank for my and Arthur’s new positions, and we are ever so pleased and inspired by the curriculum you dreamed up, too!”

Hermione blinked, slipping her hand into the familiar, warm grasp and floundering for words.  _ “Molly?” _ she finally came up with. 

The exquisitely curvaceous redhead grinned impishly, giving her hand a merry little squeeze and winking. “So very pleased to meet you, sweet girl. You must be very, very brave, doing what you did to protect young Alice and Frank. Couldn’t possibly be more thrilled to call such a hero a colleague.” She looked over Hermione, softly pressing the back of a hand to her forehead and, incidentally, giving the patient a hell of a view down her low-cut red dress and a whiff of a rather perfectly simple rose perfume. Then she stood straight again, leaving Hermione stammering and feeling like she should be apologizing for…  _ something _ . 

“Well, you haven’t a fever, I don’t think - not that I’d expect any less, what with Poppy and Narcissa here fussing night and day - but you do look a bit peaky! Well, then, what’s your favorite food? Say the word, I’ll cook you anything. What tempts you, eh, m’dear?”

Hermione couldn’t help her eyes’ momentary downward drift, then shook herself. “Em. Er. I love your… em… I’d love some chicken pot pie? Maybe… maybe chocolate mousse cake?”

The young Molly Weasley’s grin was like a punch in the face with a flashbulb. “A woman after my own heart. Well, then! I’ll be back by supper - with plenty to share, too!”

And she sashayed away, every little jiggle of her swaying walk making Hermione’s mouth go dry.

When Molly was out of sight, Hermione looked up, feeling somehow forlorn and confused. She saw Narcissa glancing wistfully in the direction Molly had gone, too, and Sirius doing likewise and panting, while the others were just looking at them, perplexed. Well, except for Alice.

“That woman,” Alice sighed, “makes me think that if I ate all the chocolate and pasties I ever wanted, I’d be crowned Aphrodite for my trouble and tumbled all day, every day, by whoever I deigned to bat my eyes at forever after. Did you  _ see _ how much...  _ stuff  _ her stuff has?”

“And that  _ waist, _ ” Hermione was mortified to hear her own voice say. 

Alice nodded vehemently. “God, yes. And those tiny wrists and ankles, and that perfect single chin. It isn’t  _ fair!”  _ she whined, pointing at her own chest (which was likely the only one in the room that could compare). “All I get is these things, but it’s like a flock of pudgy little cherubs swept down to kiss all the right wiggle into being, to just the exact point beyond which it would no longer be attractive, _ all over _ her entire body. No  _ wonder _ Arthur’s gotten her pregnant again every second time I see her.”

Hermione swept her hands over her face. “Well, at least I know I didn’t lose my sex drive to those bastards,” she grumbled, causing Alice to gape with delight and Narcissa to nod sympathetically as all the males in the room looked at her questioningly. 

Then, Narcissa shook herself out of the reverie. “Alright, alright, visiting time over I’ll… I’ll send a Patronus around when Molly returns with dinner, get some sort of table transfigured to suit if Hermione’s not up to being ambulatory or fix up one of the private dining rooms if she is. I’m sure whatever Molly brings will be… will be mouthwatering… and… em… let’s give Professor Granger some time to rest before we all are together again, shall we?”

Narcissa shooed everyone - even Sirius, tail between his legs, out of the Infirmary, closing the door behind them before she sank into a chair at Hermione’s bedside with a tired huff. 

Hermione looked over at her, eyes still wide. “You want to know what’s awful?”

Narcissa looked up, tired but mustering a little smile. “What, darling?”

Hermione knew she had self-pity all over her face but couldn’t pull it back. “I couldn’t tolerate spontaneous touch from Severus, with whom I have been intimate, but I’ve just spent the last ten minutes vividly imagining how glorious it would be to have a roll in the clover with my former mother-in-law.”

Narcissa leaned back, interested.  _ “Molly? _ But… what are you, then, a time traveler?”

Hermione nodded miserably. “Yes, a time traveler. It was an accident.” Hermione scratched an itch on her elbow. “Or, you know, this could be some absurd dream and I’m actually dying right now, which seemed likelier at first, but now I don’t think my imagination’s this good, if I’m honest.”

Narcissa shrugged. “Time traveler explains a lot.” 

Hermione shrugged, too.

There was a long comfortable moment when neither said anything. Then Narcissa leaned forward. “May I… may I give you something that might… get you processing a few things before they have a chance to fester, before I go? It’s unconventional healing, but…”

Hermione cocked her head, considering the strange request a moment before she nodded. “I guess?”

Narcissa nodded, too, sweeping her hair back behind her shoulders and appearing to steel herself before looking up at Hermione again. “Em, just… tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop right away, alright? Only, well, I rather wish, in the first bluff flush of gladness it was over and before I’d built up doubt and dread too far, someone had done it for me.”

Hermione looked at Narcissa quizzically, noticing the pale blonde was slightly flushed.

Then, after a steadying breath, Narcissa leaned forward - slowly, so slowly - then, softly, pressed her lips to Hermione’s in a closed but lingering kiss.

And then she sat up, scrutinized Hermione’s face for signs of panic, and, finding none, nodded, got up, and walked away. Hermione was left blinking, a bit dazed, but fairly sure there remained life worth being interested in on the far side of the trauma she’d have to work to come to terms with. 


	51. Time Cures All Wounds

###  DECEMBER 3, 1981

Severus stood across the cauldron from Hermione, elbows tucked to his sides, his potion making drabbed down considerably in its virtuosity due to his determination not to take up too much space - which had been an ongoing theme of late.

Violet Karasu was standing with Hermione, watching. It helped that she was in Advanced Potions already, and only had one more year at Hogwarts after this one. 

“Please remember you can’t widely discuss this, Violet - I’m very glad you’re befriending others more fully impacted by lycanthropy and want to help them, but technically the formula is still very much a secret,” Hermione said as she smiled warmly at the younger woman, who was noticeably less anxious and better rested than she’d been just a few days prior. 

Hermione credited Charity’s work with a lot of how well they were  _ both  _ doing - truly, she’d been wasted on Muggle Studies. Perhaps the Mind Healer’s most important stroke had been establishing ‘Stitch Club,’ a sort of fibercraft-optional, discreet support group for those recovering from past assaults.

Both of them also had other help to lean on. Hermione, for her part, found that her independently-cultivated ability to defer emotional response to various disasters, practiced and developed during basically her  _ entire life  _ as a witch to date... was both useful to her recovery  _ and  _ gradually being phased out to make way for better mechanisms. Violet, as a Slytherin of a neutral family who had skirted the worst of the first war, lacked such practice (thank Merlin) - but got her own boost from exploring her new, minor lycanthropic traits, which she seemed very capable of making into a silver lining.

The potion suddenly changed color, snapping Hermione out of her reverie. “Surprise surprise, Snape strikes again!” Hermione grinned, realizing that Severus was pouring the prescribed liter of honeywater into the cauldron  _ over  _ his silver tablespoon of pulverized Mandrake. “Violet, this is only his second time making this potion, which I have been making for  _ years,  _ but did you see what he just did? I never tried that as a better way to avoid sticky spoons  _ and _ add both those ingredients simultaneously - you might as well just cross out anything written in the copy of the formula I gave you and replace it with any modifications you see him make.”

Severus looked like he was on the edge of saying something for a moment, but then looked back down at the cauldron, gradually adding, stirring, and adjusting heat. Violet just furrowed her brow and scribbled furiously.

Hermione occasionally asked Severus about why he was doing something differently, making her own more economical notes where she could learn something from him (which was at virtually every step). Finally, though, they came to a lull where the potion needed to be covered and let sit for at least twenty minutes.

Violet and Hermione sat down on the stools on their side of the brewing table, and Severus busied himself with cleaning up, taking a number of vials and beakers back to a sink in the storage room that sat between the classroom and his quarters. 

Violet bent toward Hermione, speaking quietly. “You’re sure? You’re positive I won’t turn, that I don’t need to take this myself?”

Hermione nodded. “You’re just a little faster, and as you found out when your roommate borrowed your brush last week, your nose is sharper and your temper’s quicker. There may be other things, but it’s usually just a few little ones - and yours are terribly useful. My friend Bill just liked his steak rarer. Have you managed to sort things out with Celia, by the way?”

Violet shrugged. “Sort of. I haven’t… I haven’t wanted to tell everyone what happened, and without context, I think it just looks like I’ve… gone mean or something.”

Hermione nodded, gnawing at her lip. “But you did tell… Warwick?”

Violet smiled a little, though sadly. “Yes. I… that went a lot better than I thought. His… well. His mom, I guess, was hurt in the war, you know? She’s Muggleborn. After it happened, apparently it was very very bad, and then after things started getting better, she made a point to talk to him about it and about no meaning no and how much it can hurt people when they aren’t listened to about their own bodies. He wouldn’t touch me for a while, but I asked him to start holding my hand again, and that’s… that’s nice.  _ He _ is nice. I think… I think we’ll be okay.”

Hermione smiled, offering her hand, which Violet squeezed gratefully. “I’m so glad to hear that, Violet. I’m… working on my own love life, too. It doesn’t help how messy it was  _ before _ all this, but… well,” she chuckled at her own expense, fingers closing around the folded and re-folded slip of paper in her pocket, “I’ve even written out a Plan, sort of.”

Violet arched a brow at her. “Em… that’s… ambitious? Can you … I mean, do you know how things are going to happen, with other people and all, enough to be able to do that ahead of time? 

Hermione laughed outright, shaking her head. “Godric, no. Maybe I’ll be nearly right, and I can amend it, though. And… writing it down, feeling like I have a strategy instead of just a great opportunity to stand there with my mouth open and no words coming out… it makes me feel more up to it, you know?”

Violet nodded and looked over at the hearth. “I write down or sketch my nightmares, when they wake me up, and then I burn them in the morning. It makes me feel better.”

Hermione shook her head. “That monster - and I’m talking about a human, and it has nothing to do with the fact he’s a werewolf - has hurt far too many people I care about. Finding him a sticky end is near the top of my List.”

Violet shivered, then looked at Hermione sidewise. “So… is the List part of the Plan. or…?”

Hermione waved her hand, shaking her head. “Oh, separate. The List’s all in my head, with Voldemort at the top with a bullet. Predates the Plan by ages and ages. The List’s been… a little bit on ice to wait for me to work through Plan stuff, though.”

Violet nodded sympathetically. “That sounds familiar.”

Hermione looked at the barely younger girl - who still was yet a student - and missed what used to be such a tangible feeling that she could just reach out and  _ fix _ problems. That feeling had been thin on the ground of late. Still, though; “We’ll get there together,” Hermione promised.

Violet nodded. “We will.” Then she stood up, gathering her books. “I think I’ll be able to brew another cauldron alongside Professor Snape next month, if we can find someone to use it.”

Hermione nodded. “I’ve friends among the Aurors who can check a list of others attacked by Greyback. I’m sure someone out there will find it life-changing, Violet. Thank you.”

Violet smiled and stood. “May I?” she asked, standing with open arms.

Gratefully, Hermione nodded and stepped into them, exchanging a tight hug with the girl she’d so rapidly gotten to know. “Godric, look at you. Could’ve been a ruddy Gryffindor, you’re so brave.”

Violet  _ snrked _ . “And you’re ambitious enough you might’ve made a passable Slytherin. Good luck, then,” she said, glancing significantly toward the back room (to Hermione’s chagrin) before heading out the door.

❧

Hermione stepped into the storage room behind Severus and closed the door behind her. She watched as his shoulders stilled a moment, and then he turned the faucet off, pivoting to face her without coming any closer, his face guarded but curious. 

She held out the brightly-wrapped present she’d held behind her back. It had little cats wearing Father Christmas hats all over it. 

He looked at it, then, a bit quizzically, back up at her. 

She shrugged. “Look, I know it’s early, but I couldn’t wait, alright? I’ve been… well.” She thrust it at him. “Just take it, will you?”

He walked up to her slowly, keeping his eyes on hers and his hands in plain sight, then carefully reached up to take the parcel - his index finger brushing her thumb as the weight transferred. He frowned immediately as she stilled. “I’m… I’m sorry - I… didn’t mean to touch you.”

Hermione took a deep breath, then huffed in exasperation, brushing past him to the door to his quarters and stopping in front of it. “May I?” she asked, her hand on the knob.

After standing quite still a moment, he nodded. 

Hermione banged open the door and threw herself onto the couch in his small sitting room, then paused, sitting up straighter to take in ways the room had changed. 

Scattered around, full of bookmarks and highlights, were heaps of issues of  _ Ms. _ magazine. She also spotted copies of Simone de Beauvoir’s  _ The Second Sex  _ and Anaïs Nin’s  _ In Favor of the Sensitive Man _ \- as well as several books on supporting people through grief and recent sexual assault. 

All were covered in notes and inky thumbprints, highlighted in multiple colors, and positively mangled with dog-eared corners and improvised bookmarks. 

As she sat there, speechless, Severus shuffled in, rubbing at the back of his neck, and Artemis zipped by, batting a yellow highlighter across the floor. 

Severus sat in the lone arm chair across from the couch. 

Neither of them spoke. 

Hermione finally found some words, sweeping a hand around to gesture at the new reading. “So this.”

He nodded. “This.”

She scratched her head, drawing her feet up out of her shoes and folding them tailor-fashion. “Did you, em, ask a Muggle Librarian, or…?”

Severus vigorously shook his head. “Em, no.  _ No.”  _ He took a long, shaky breath. “You see, while you and a few others have had…  _ Stitch _ Club… some of us have also started a … well… a Rare Firewhiskey Tasting Club.”

Hermione blinked, confused. “You mean the Wednesday night thing? With the poker-playing sometimes?”

Severus nodded. “Yes, although it’s led by Healer Burbage, and we’ve met almost every night. Remus is increasingly helpful in facilitating the conversation too. There’s only  _ some _ drinking, but very little actual cards. Mostly there are… books. And readings and discussion.”

Hermione sat back. “Hot  _ damn _ .”

Severus just looked watchful and worried - a new and strange development - so she waved her own remark away. “And… and all this constitutes readings for the club?”

Severus blinked owlishly, picking up a new-looking copy of  _ Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism _ by bell hooks and hugging it to his chest. “Well,  _ some  _ of it is just related reading - mostly we read articles or single chapters for the group.”

Hermione nodded slowly. “But you got the whole books.” 

Snape nodded. “I think most of us did. My… well. My mother… has been exceptionally helpful.”

Hermione nodded slowly, mouthing a silent  _ Aaaaaahhhhh. _ Eileen Pince was in Stitch Club, Godric  _ bury _ her despicably deceased husband. Also, now, as she was running the library, she also took care of all the faculty’s book acquisitions, magical and mundane. 

Snape shrugged, continuing to hold on to his book. Hermione smiled. “I won’t take it, you know.”

Snape looked startled for a moment and then nodded, reluctantly putting the book down on the coffee table.

Hermione looked at him, then stood and walked over to him, offering a hand. “May I help you up?”

He looked up at her, but only while he also crammed as much of himself into the far corner of his chair as possible. “Are… are you sure?”

She nodded, and after a moment, he hesitantly put his hand just over hers, still not touching her. With a chuckle, she closed the distance, grasping his hand and then pulling him up.

\--Too close. She had to breath a minute and take half a step back, but when he started to back away, she tightened her grip on his hand. “Stop that, you. This  _ helps _ me.”

He stood very still, face disconcertingly distant from its impassive norms as it twitched in concern. She wondered if she should give him another book to hug for comfort as she worked on steadying her breathing. Which, eventually, she succeeded in doing. Then, with a little shuffle, she moved herself back into his space.

The heat, the currents of air disturbed by proximity and the movement of his breath… it felt  _ nice _ . It smelled like Severus: potion ingredients and smoke and, lately, tea tree and peppermint oils.

His breathing was hesitant, but slowly, he started to untense and just stand next to her, even looking down at the top of her head as she closed her eyes and just… felt. 

And finally she nodded, reaching up on her toes to kiss his nose before she said, “Thank you,” and left - forgetting to wait for him to open her present.

❧

Hermione knocked, then opened the door into Charity’s office, finding her colleague face down and drooling in her sleep in a pile of paperwork. Hermione stepped around behind the Mind Healer, delicately rooting around under her collar before then ducking under her chair to pick something up off the carpet at her feet, then moved back to the guest’s side of things and sat down in one of her armchairs there - whereupon she cleared her throat, loudly. 

Charity jumped, sending papers everywhere and, in the course of trying to nudge her glasses up her nose, flipped them up and off, over her head. 

As she gathered her wakefulness around her, she looked guiltily at Hermione, though she attempted to pave it with a professional smile. “Ah, hello, Hermione! I was just taking my… my… my nap?”

Charity squinted at a flash of movement, glassesless, and made out that Hermione was spinning a Time Turner from a raised hand. 

Charity swallowed. 

Hermione stood dangled the device just out of Charity’s reach. “Sometime, ask me about my experiences with time turners - and time travel in general, will you? And in the meantime, I think …  _ maybe  _ we should move to every-other night - for  _ both  _ groups - and you should give that bauble back. Agreed?”

“Em, oh, silly me, that’s just a repli…  _ wait don’t do that!”  _ she screeched as Hermione started to position it, looped over her wrist, to be operated.

Hermione wagged a finger. “Also ask me about my experiences with being both  _ really smart _ and a monumental idiot, alright?”

Hermione put the time turner down and inclined her head, closing the door behind her as she left the office, satisfied. She seemed to have located her ability to reach in and help people again. 


	52. Best Laid Plans

### DECEMBER 5, 1981

When Remus opened the door, he could smell nothing but the overwhelming stench of the Wolfsbane Potion - and so he was caught off guard by the fact that, this night, _Hermione_ was the one delivering it. 

He started to backpedal into his room as she started to walk in, seeing that fixed thing her jaw did when she would not be argued with.

With a calculating glance, she kept coming, trying to go around one side of him, it seemed, then the other, until… the backs of his knees collided with his favorite chair and he fell down on it, seated - and _cornered_. “Dammit,” he swore, glowering at her. 

She thrust the potion into his hands, then gingerly lifted the time turner off from around his neck. She didn’t seem phased when her fingers brushed his skin, even though he shied in expectation of such an inevitability. 

Then, after tucking the Turner in a pocket, she sat in his second-favorite chair, across from him. “You know the meetings will be every other day now, right?”

He nodded. 

“And that you can continue coming to both?”

He nodded more slowly. “I… look, I think it was needed, and-”

She nodded even as she cut him off. “-It may well have been, and I thank you and Charity for losing sleep and other productivity and tempting fate by fiddling with time to make it happen. But I think we need to work toward something more sustainable, now that the initial binge of feelings and readings has been done. People also need time - and space - to move through personal courses of action to address their individual recovery needs at their own pace. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Remus sputtered for a moment, then got a canny glint in his eye, folding his arms over his chest and swiveling his crossed legs away from her. “You start talking like that, leading me down some primrose path, and I know I’m about to be tricked into something that makes perfect sense but which you haven’t bothered to fully explain to me, and I have to say I don’t find it quite as cute as others do.”

Hermione nodded brusquely. “Of course you don’t. You’re too much like me. You want to understand everything you encounter early and all the way along, and you work hard and generally excel toward that end. You don’t like things festering hidden - even though you can be your own worst enemy by ingeniously self-inflicting problematic secrets and misunderstandings. That’s why - apart from lifting your damnable device - I came to you.”

He squinted at her suspiciously. She smiled at him with a placidity that could only be there to cover ruthlessness.

“What… exactly… do you want, Hermione? And why?”

“I want to heal. With you. I don’t think either of us _can_ heal without… without continuing the struggle we started together, _still_ together, because it would feel like leaving the other behind. And… when I think about healing, I think about how much _I want_ _you_ , Remus.” She combed her hair back with her hands in frustration, feeling helpless at the sight of his still-furrowed brow. “I rather naively thought we’d have time, before the trap dropped, to see - to explore without it being through a filter of _being_ Frank and Alice a bit, behind closed doors. I…I’ve wanted you for an embarrassingly long time into my past, and damned if I will let a band of vile Death Eaters wring the pleasure of _having_ you from my future.”

He knew - because he’d read the books on survivor’s guilt, and he’d been talking to Charity to coordinate facilitating the groups, _and_ even seeing another Mind Healer on her recommendation, that what had happened to her was ostensibly _not_ his fault. He knew it reasonably, but he couldn’t feel it and it was basically impossible to feel it - so he said what he kept circling back to instead. “But I couldn’t stop them, Hermione. I was there, and I couldn’t help you. How can you even stand to be near me, after how I failed you?”

She sighed and settled back into her chair. “Alright, let’s deal with those statements, likely in more or less exactly the way we both know they need to be addressed, okay? Maybe it will be easier if I’m here to argue instead of defenseless as an abstract.” He nodded. Then she leaned forward, paralyzing him with the intensity, the sincerity of her eyes. “You did not rape me, Remus. You were a victim there, too - including of sexual assault, thanks to Bellatrix. Watching you get hurt - directly _and_ indirectly - continues to be among the hardest parts of it all for _me_ to get over as well. So suppose you heard me say things I have actually thought, like, ‘damn me, I should be _better_ at wandless, gestureless magic, I should have _Incarcerous_ ’d the lot and then Remus wouldn’t have been tortured, but when I could have shoehorned practice in during those months I lived on the run a couple years back, I mostly moped instead,’ or ‘I wish I’d just shrugged it off, kept a stiff upper lip and kept making wilting remarks at Bellatrix, because _then_ Remus wouldn’t be sunk into a torrent of self-recrimin-”

“-That’s insane!” Remus said, coming out of his seat, tearing at his hair. “Dammit, Hermione, you can’t possibly… you were so fucking _beyond_ brave, you figured out exactly what need to be done and how to signal me even though-”

Hermione held up a hand and he stopped, sighing and sitting back down again. “You are, of course, right - and I am, too.” She shook her head. “4 Deatheaters are at fault, and Voldemort is. Not us. Also… though I appreciate your pointing out my own role in dropping hints, you _did_ save me, and yourself - as soon as you could have, in a way that no one else could have. Rabastan is down some… shall we say, _salient_ body parts, Rodolphus is dead, and Bellatrix remains concussed and, per Kingsley-”

Remus leaned forward, scowling “-Are you _still_ in communication with that prattling popinjay Shacklebolt?!”

She gave him a warning glare, “Per _Kingsley_ , Bellatrix paces her cell at Azkaban making scary faces at the Dementors and monologuing about the comparative romantic merits of Lupin versus the Dark Lord, you were so fucking scarily powerful that day -”

“-I’m sorry, is this meant to make me feel _better?”_ he half-yelled, half-whined.

“-maybe? Maybe not, okay, maybe I oughtn’t to have said, but _still_ \- you are an effective, potent creature, you took your power back, and I don’t want you to sink in a mire of self-examination and deprecation - something which I _know_ you to be prone to. Ergo, I want us to stop thinking and avoiding each other so much and try to learn to make love again, together.”

Remus sat back, sucking in a breath, eyes bulging. 

Hermione just … sat back.

They looked at each other for a while.

“And how exactly do you want to do this?”

Hermione held up a small notebook. “I’ve written a plan.”

Remus arched a brow at her. “Does it read, _insert tab A into slot B,_ then _…_?”

Hermione scowled. “No! Fuck… Yes! _I don’t know!_ It was mostly to allay fears and work out my anxiety, dammit!”

Remus got up and started pacing. “I don’t think you can bloody, I don’t know, _plan_ how two emotionally volatile, traumatized people with complicated histories, _predating_ the actual acute event we’re discussing, are going to be able to fucking _touch_ each other, much less plan how, one day, _poof!_ The slipper fits, I’m up your fanny, and the curtain falls on a carriage trundling off into the sunset!” he yelled.

She stood too, shouting at him. “ _Of course_ I don’t think you can fucking plan it _perfectly_ , I just had to imagine a possible course of action before I-”

“-Before you _what?!”_ he said, rounding on her.

“ _Before_ I…” she yelled in his face, eyes flashing with rage.

“Yeah, still _waiting_ here, Hermione,” he taunted.

And then, with a snarl, she lunged at him, knocking him into his chair and then both man and seat over to lie on their backs on the floor, with her atop them, straddling his waist, as her lips crushing into his.

After a moment of the wind knocked out of him, he reacted with a guttural groan, plunging his tongue into her mouth as if to taste her throat, letting his arms close roughly around her waist and pull her into him, so tightly he knew it could never be tight enough. 

She nonetheless wedged her hands between them and tore his shirt open, buttons pinching between them and spilling all over the floor, before she hungrily kissed down his neck toward a nipple, biting it as his hands shifted lower under her to gather her buttocks into handfuls and _squeeze_. 

They both moaned, Hermione boosted off the floor along with Remus as his back arched convulsively.

Remus almost purred, manhandling her ass, pulling it wide then kneading it back together, thrusting his fucking _painful_ hard-on up against the damp seeping through her jeans as he ground her down into him.

With a shudder, she yanked off her shirt, accidentally throwing it into the grate and shrugging when it caught fire, then yanking his hands up to her bare breasts and rolling him on top of her, out of the chair and onto a thick carpet over the stone floor. 

“Fuck the plan.” she breathed, unfastening the front of his trousers. “Fuck explaining. I need you. In me. _Now_. Can you? Please?”

He shuddered at the softness of her under his weight a moment, then knelt to yank her knickers and jeans off in one go, dragging shoes and socks with them before he pushed his own trousers down past his ass, his throbbing erections springing free with every evidence of uncomplicated enthusiasm. 

“Fuck the plan,” he muttered, lowering himself back onto her, reaching down to position himself between her legs. “Fuck the plan, and fuck the witch.”

And then, surging forward, he thrust into her. They both screamed. 

“Fuck, Hermione, oh, Godric and Rowena and Helena and fucking _Salazar_ I need you,” he moaned, thrusting again, looping his arms under her shoulders to clutch her to him. “I need you, I need _this_ , Sweet Circe couldn’t slake this thirst.”

And again.

Hermione writhed to touch as much of him as she could, drumming her heels off the bounce of his impeccable ass impatiently and screaming, “Yes, fuck, Remus, _yes_ , faster, faster, _nnmmmmnnph_ , just like that, _yes_ , yes… yesssss..”

Within a minute, she arched under him, crying out as her face contorted in ecstasy while he continued to hammer into her at a fevered pace, pounding into her as if all his fear was running in hot pursuit, as if he could feel its breath on his neck if he had even an instant to think.

He reached down between them, stroking her clit as if to make it burst into flame and, in another thirty seconds,

“OH FUCK, _fuck,_ fuck fuck fuck _yes_ , Remus, fuck me, fuck me yes,”

He was unslowing, sliding over her through a slippery sheen of commingled sweat, the lycanthropy pouring inhuman strength and speed into his jerking hips, and in another _two_ minutes, 

“Ooooohhh, Godric, Remus, yes, yes, _fuck_ , yes ,” 

And, in another one, an inarticulate cry that almost sounded like a sob, followed by a nod to keep going.

And again (three minutes)

And again (45 seconds)

And again (five minutes)

Then, she glanced down and saw his hips _actually blurring_ , and she felt like… like cream that had gotten _whipped,_ perfect and pained and going numb all at once, and she stroked her hands slowly down his back as his muscles continued to do incredible things she’d need to … at _least_ have a drink for, later, if not a pain potion. “Kiss me, you magnificent creature,” she murmured, stroking back his hair, feeling the next cataclysm build within her on an edge of pain, “and then _come_ in me. I need you in me, Remus. I want to feel you, warming me from within, sticky on my thighs. Let me carry you as a talisman, of things good and wanted and true. I want you, Remus. Come for me, oh!… please, please…” she begged, the slow strokes of her hands reaching him, slowing him, holding him as his rhythm grew more erratic and the end began with a plaintive whine, stuck in his throat, and crescendoed toward… toward.. 

Remus roared, dropping his broad hands down to grasp her hips as he pumped an offer of life into her, grinding down _hard_ as he spurted hot into her hungry center. She let her back and shoulders go limps, her arms falling down over her head until, with his third roaring volley, she cried out, “Remus, _yes_ ,” and tensed, arching up and bearing down around him… until they both collapsed into a shuddering heap of sweat and limbs, still barely rocking together.

He started sobbing first, but she wasn’t far behind.


	53. Ladies’ Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay - when it rains it pours, but glad to be back.

###  DYNGJUFJÖLL MOUNTAINS, ICELAND - DECEMBER 10, 1981

“Ooooooo, this was  _ such _ a good idea!” Molly squeaked, pulling her dress off over her head and running mother-naked into the turquoise water.

Hermione and Narcissa leaned on each other a moment, then, patting each other’s hands reassuringly, continued down the slope. 

Narcissa, however, looked more dubious with every step, her nose not exactly turning up - but decidedly wrinkling.

Alice, after toeing the hot water, shrugged and tossed off her top before unlatching and dismantling a magnificently buttressed contraption of a bra and sliding her skirt and knickers down her legs. “Guess we’re doing this,” she stage whispered as she grinned fiendishly over her shoulder at them. “End of term tomorrow, whooopeeeeee!”

And she jumped right in after Molly, whereupon the two women started to splash each other.

Charity bounded down, having gotten a slightly late start, and immediately started tugging off her boots. “Yes! Doesn’t look like I’ve missed much - and I brought the wine, ladies! Straight from my friend Cerise at Beauxbatons!” she said, somehow unloading three bottles of old, expensive-looking red, several stemmed crystal glasses, and a corkscrew from inside her slim-fitting leather jacket before she unzipped it and set about peeling off layers.

Hermione laughed, her breath clouding in the cold nordic air, then started to levitate enormous logs out of her tiny beaded bag and turn them into something kind of like a tripod - but with a lot more legs - several feet to the side of the pool. When she was done, their newest colleague - and last to arrive - ignited them with a wave of her hand. 

“I am ‘ere! Ooooh, zis iz lovely! Mon Dieu, Molly, look at you! I wish I could persuade you to let me wring sapphic pleasure from your  _ incroyable _ bodee! Maybe onlee twice or tree times?”

… and then Ismay, Mme. Hooch’s new counterpart and a full-blooded Veela, ignited her own clothes, burning them off her jaw-dropping body, and plunged into the water. Molly readily hugged her, chuckling, “Oh, Ismay, you’re a hoot, you are! We need to feed you up and get you a wizard!”

Ismay happily cuddled into the perfect vastness that was Molly, her eyes turning flame-orange before they fluttered shut. “Oh, sacre bleu, take me  _ now _ , magnifique goddess!”

Molly laughed again and scooped up some fine white mud, smooshing it into the top of the Veela’s perfect head of sunshine-yellow hair. “Oooo!” the Veela said, and then happily started a very thorough slathering of Molly in return. 

Hermione and Narcissa, who were still standing clothed on the outside, had their heads cocked in identical dreamy looks for a moment before Alice swam up and tugged on Narcissa’s suede boot, incidentally resting her gravity-defiant bosom above the lip of the pool in order to reach. Narcissa was so busy staring that she nearly tripped, and Hermione was just glad it hadn’t been her foot, really.

“Get in, you shy hens! The stars are beautiful, the water’s perfect, and the mud feels like the warm spot in your belly after really, really good sex.”

Reluctantly, the two dalliers began to peel off, both trying to sweep away their swimsuits with their other garments so as not to make a big deal out of how  _ they  _ hadn’t realized this would go full  _ naked  _ Ladies’ Night on them.

Also, they undressed back to back. 

“I cannot  _ fathom _ ,” Narcissa muttered, “ _ why _ you feel the need to confront me with my aversion to mud and make me get over it. Mud is  _ filth _ , Hermione. Mud is  _ yucky _ .”

Hermione couldn’t help but laugh at that, shaking her head as she tossed off her sweater. “Look, you were brought up to think the same thing about my  _ blood _ , Narcissa, and now we’re… we’re…”

“We’re,” Narcissa sniffed, “very attractive, highly intelligent female friends, each attracted to the finer examples of prospective partners without much fuss over their gender - each with ambiguous, complex, and serious romantic relationships with men, and also each nurturing some unresolved tensions toward the other?” Narcissa asked drily.

Hermione shrugged, smirking as she shimmied out of her bikini bottoms. “And… who are going to rub silky white mud all over each other with all their other female friends, several of whom are problematically attractive! And one of whom brought… nope, I thought it was three, but there are now  _ five _ bottles of wine!”

Narcissa stood, finally nude, and glanced appreciatively over her shoulder at Hermione, who was bent to tuck off her woolen knee socks. 

Then, vaguely guilty, Narcissa looked away, fidgeting with her hair. “How…  _ are  _ you, anyhow? We don’t talk about it out of Stitch Club-”

“-The First Rule of Stitch Club,” Hermione cut in, “is that you don’t talk about what’s been talked about in Stitch Club.”

Narcissa huffed, waving the comment aside. “Yes, and I also know the second rule, but seriously: are you feeling better? I… I think little of it was so acute, for me, so much as a degradation of what degree of control I expected to be allowed in my life. But I think it’s helping me to talk. I just… I wanted to check in on you, that’s all.”

Hermione turned, looking at her unlikely friend’s rather stunning back, before taking her hand and tugging her toward the pool. “I can hold your hand, now, and it’s not a thing I need to see coming or steel myself for, I guess.”

Alice spoke up from the pool. “Aw. That’s really great, Hermione. I’m happy for you.”

Ismay blinked, peeling her muddy hands reluctantly away from Molly’s half-caked back. “Vhat iz zis? I zhought that you were athletically fucking ze ‘ansome apprentice - ze one with ze green eyes.”

Hermione flushed. “Well… yes, I think we’re trying to help each other get over things, but we’re not exclusive-”

Molly whipped her head around, grinning over her shoulder. “Oooh, vicarious adventure time.  _ Please _ tell me you get him and Sirius at the same time, Hermione - you have  _ no idea _ how much daydream real estate I have tied up in this market!”

Hermione chuckled, stepping in and then, when she saw Narcissa begin to look like she was going to bolt away from the pool’s edge, reaching up and snatching her by the hips to lift her down into the water. By the time they were face to face, Narcissa’s cheeks were all flushed, and she mumbled unintelligibly as she sank to her shoulders and went to sit on the far side of Alice. 

Meanwhile, Hermione sat down near the makeshift stairs someone had devised and shrugged. “Molly, I would be lying if I denied having some daydream follies of my own built in that very same neighborhood - but that’s… complicated.”

Molly clapped and made an adorable little squeaking sound as Ismay, clearly still listening, resumed applying mud to her back. 

Narcissa huffed, watching with extreme skepticism as Alice and Charity started slathering each other with white mud. “You’re too good for my ridiculous cousin, Hermione. Even if the pretty hero  _ is  _ part of the bargain. Now, Severus, on the other hand…”

Hermione held up her hands in surrender. “Look, I think Remus and Severus should  _ at least _ be good friends. They have a great deal in common with each other, and me - and… maybe I’ve built an idle altar or two in that neck of the woods, too, but as far as I’m aware, Severus isn’t interested in other men.”

Alice looked up from Charity’s back sharply. “Hermione, the way you said that… it almost sounds like you know that Sirius and Remus  _ are _ interested in other men..?”

Hermione flushed. “I’ve already said too much.” She shook her head as great plans seemed to rise and fall to be replaced by still  _ greater  _ ones in Alice’s widening eyes. “Can we  _ please _ talk about someone else’s love life?” she pleaded.

Alice beamed, raising her hand. “Yes!” she squeaked. “Can I borrow Sirius? Only, Frank and I would like, maybe, to introduce another factor, just, you know, from time to time…”

Narcissa’s face fell into her hand. “Salazar, what am I listening to here?” she muttered, even as everyone else laughed.

Hermione shrugged, fighting down a smirk. “Sirius isn’t held down by anything but what Sirius wants,” she hedged. 

Ismay nodded. “‘Owever Zirius, beautiful man, ee onlee wants ze fair ‘Ermione - even zough, two doors away, she is lately alvays loudly shagging ze charming Remus, shattering all ze furniture!  _ Poor  _ Zirius. Eet is zooooo tragically romantique, non?” She sighed and then started happily slathering mud onto Molly’s shoulders.

Hermione groaned, squishing her toes disconsolately in the mud. 

“Vhat?” she heard Ismay say, not looking up to see who’d splashed her. “‘Ee and I, vee play Quidditch one-on-one and drink togezer! Ee iz an excellent… how you say? Wingman! You know, in ze taverns - such conquests I have made zese last few days! An’ ‘ee beats me on ze pitch sometimes, even having to ride about on zhat ‘orrible old broom!”

Hermione had to join in the laughter about that.

Charity, she noticed, was regarding her curiously but not saying much. “Healer Burbage?” Hermione asked. “Do you have something to share with the class?”

Charity had a beautiful, bubbly giggle - once Hermione hadn’t heard in too long, because even Charity couldn’t work much in the way of pranks in among the subjects discussed lately. “You’re going to make an excellent Professor with that voice, Hermione.”

Hermione sketched a little bow. “I learned from McGonagall, and McGonagall-”

“-Is the best,” the others said in tandem, even Narcissa laughing as she settled a little deeper into the water, her earlobes skimming the surface. 

Hermione looked around, “Do I really say it  _ that _ much?”

Charity nodded apologetically. “You do. But also… I think we all know your story, at this point. I was wondering… didn’t you have anyone at home who was a partner to you?”

Hermione hedged, looking at her hands through the murky water. “Well, in my own time, I was recently divorced…”

Charity looked at her a little too insightfully. “You mentioned that - but was there someone with whom you left things off, you know, before you came here?”

Hermione kneaded at her temples with both hands. “Em. Has anyone poured the wine?”

Things got a little uncomfortably quiet as Alice handed her a rather generous glass, which she drank from gratefully before looking up to see all eyes still on her. So she sighed. “Yes. Yes, alright, nothing… nothing had  _ happened _ yet, but sort of, yes, I think someone was about to be.”

Charity continued to look at her expectantly. Hermione looked back a moment, then shook her head. “Not right now, Charity. I need… a  _ lot _ more wine, and why isn’t anyone putting mud on me?”

Charity made soothing, deferential motions with her hands. “Sorry, sorry - I just feel like there’s something about you I don’t know yet, and it’s important. But yes! Everyone needs wine. Who’s thirsty?”

❧

Hermione liked life at two glasses of wine. It reminded her of one of her favorite books - in which the main character, the author postulated, was born two drinks too sober. She identified deeply with that description, especially when life in general had her on edge. 

Still, feeling a little less need to be in control than usual, she poured herself a third, topping up other glasses as she went.

And, a few sips into that, she dove down to the middle of the bottom of the pool… and retrieved a double handful of mud. 

She angled her head to keep her wet hair out of her eyes as she resurfaced, then blinked, looking around. Molly was putting the finishing touches on Ismay’s back, and Ismay appeared to be imagining with all her might that that was going somewhere it… really would  _ not _ . Meanwhile, Alice and Charity were already out, completely covered in a thick mud coating and baking it dry as they roasted marshmallows and little sausages in the fire with hovering charms. 

Narcissa looked relatively content, but still mudless - and as if she were hoping no one noticed. Then Hermione swam up in front of her… and started rubbing the silky white mud into her own hair. “How’re you doing?” she asked the problematically  _ Mrs.  _ Malfoy, waiting to speak until she was brushing her mud-covered fingers over the planes of her own face and then down her neck. 

Narcissa took a long sip of her wine, eyes twitching after Hermione’s progress as her hands neared her breasts… and then reached them, circling inward slowly with generous daubs of creamy white. Hermione stretched out the time a little, enjoying being looked at hungrily, she realized, by someone so manifestly  _ perfect _ . 

After she finished there, though, Hermione paused, looking at Narcissa as she heard Ismay and Molly get out to go bake in near the fire behind them. “Do you need me to help you rub it in, Narciassa?”

Narcissa, uncharacteristically quiet, shook her head, pouring herself more wine. 

Hermione nodded, turning her back to the other woman. “Will you please do me?”

Narcissa coughed, spitting wine, and Hermione smiled innocently over her shoulder. “My back, that is?”

Narcissa glared a moment and then, making a face as she dug up a handful of mud from the edge and stepped closer, smoothing muddy hands over Hermione’s shoulders. 

“Mmmmmm,” Hermione hummed, leaning into Narcissa’s hands, “That’s perfect.”

Narcissa worked quietly but meticulously for several minutes while Hermione made the occasional murmur of thanks or appreciative noise. 

But as narrow hands approached the small of her back, Hermione couldn’t stop herself. “Narcissa, did that formal writ of separation come through for you yet?”

Narcissa, concentrating, took a minute to reply. “Yes,” she mumbled. “Yes, it did.”

Hermione nodded, kicking one leg up to rest her ankle at about head height on the lip of the pool, then, before Narcissa could declare herself finished, then smiling between Narcissa’s handful of mud and her foot expectantly. 

Narcissa glowered, but was just as exacting in her application of mud from Hermione’s foot down to her mid-thigh. 

“So, you can pursue other partners, then, if you like, without contractual penalty?”

Narcissa nodded. “We are both free to explore options other than the continuation of our marriage, yes.”

Hermione kicked up her other foot, this time resting her ankle on Narcissa’s shoulder.

Narcissa looked at her a long moment, then started to cover this new provocation with mud. 

Hermione, meanwhile, made herself busy stretching ostentatiously to apply mud to all the in-between bits not yet addressed. 

Narcissa paused in applying mud to the back of Hermione’s knee, looking between Hermione’s serene smile and the hand applying mud to her most intimate places. “It cannot possibly feel  _ that _ good, Hermione,” she muttered waspishly. 

Hermione smiled. “I assure you, it does.”

Narcissa huffed impatiently, continuing to apply mud up and over Hermione’s knee. 

Just as she finished and started to turn away, Hermione pressed up behind her, catching her around the waist with her arms and whispering in her ear. “ _ Cissa _ . Cissa, let me do you.”

Narcissa let her eyes flutter closed a moment, leaning back against Hermione, mud and all. “It wasn’t just the champagne?”

“It was  _ never  _ just the sodding champagne, Narcissa.”

Narcissa tensed in Hermione’s arms, silent for a long moment. “You may apply your ghastly mud, then.”

Hermione smiled, picking some up and beginning to massage it into her pale shoulders. “Alright.”


	54. Winter’s Fires

###  HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY - DECEMBER 11, 1981

Hermione woke to being tucked under him, kissing him mid-yawn as he pulled her thighs around him and slid into his new favorite way to wake up. She was only slightly surprised when his mouth stuck at her neck, slightly too-sharp teeth digging into the skin of her shoulder as he groaned and started to rebound off her hips so fast she all but vibrated with it. 

She let her head loll back on her neck and surrendered to it. “Mmmm… big bad wolfy,” she murmured before the second orgasm could overtake her, arching up languorously to push her nipples into the chafe of his movement…

…only to have him flash wicked yellow eyes at her and flip her over, putting her on her hands and knees before pushing into her again, sheathing himself hard and deep for a long moment before moving again, lapping at her neck. “How do you know I won’t bite you?”

She smiled over her shoulder at him. “Because you are so much better a man than you think you are, and I have  _ always _ known it.”

He blinked, leaning down to seize her mouth in a searing kiss that somehow ended with her on top bouncing off of his frenetic thrusts, her name tearing from his lips over and over, like a prayer, as she exalted over him. 

❧

Fresh from her bath, she slipped on her robe and snuck through the hall to his room, seeing just a flash of the man’s foot before only the large, black dog looked up at her from his bed. 

She sighed. “Sirius, you have to stop this. I’m feeling so much better. Please, won’t you come out?”

He whimpered mournfully, putting his chin down on his paws. 

She huffed in exasperation. “Really? How about now?” She slipped the knot of her belt and let her robe slip from her shoulders and pool around her feet.

The dog turned his face toward the wall.

The  _ woman  _ wanted to  _ smack _ something. 

“Sirius, there’s no way you could have gotten there faster. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault you weren’t the one there with me. If you had been, it likely would have been much, much worse. Dammit, Padfoot, look at me!”

The dog resolutely kept his gaze averted.

She just  _ lost it. _

And she jumped on the enormous dog, rolling him onto his back under her. “Is this what I have to do?” she said, flexing her fingers.

The dog gave a quiet, warning growl. 

She cocked her head at him. “Oh? Is that how it’s going to be, then?”

He barked softly, trying to finagle his feet back under himself, but she had him pinned. 

“You’re honestly going to leave me no choice, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “Alright, then, here it comes, lover: belly tickles!”

While he writhed to try to squirm away, she maneuvered her fingers down deep into his thick, glossy coat, and applied the most maddening tickling she could devise. The beset dog’s tail flopped this way and that, his eyes rolling back and his tongue lolling. “Whosa good boy? Whosa good boy? Sirius is, dammit, so let me have him back, let him come  _ back _ , I’m tired of sleeping with a dog, I want the man, I want him I want him I-”

With a flash, Sirius, wild eyed, flipped her under him and pinned her wrists over her head. “Enough with the fucking  _ belly tickles!  _ Not even remotely fair!”

She grinned, craning her neck up to kiss him. “There’s the man I love.”

He made a face. “Oh? Well, you were loving  _ Remus _ pretty enthusiastically an hour ago, and-”

She slipped her ankles out from where his toes pinned them down and threw her legs around his hips, constricting them around him tightly enough to lift her body up off the bed and flush against his. “-And now, I’m here, because this is at the point where I feel like you’re making me process your grief, which is not…  _ not  _ appropriate, and I know if you think about it you’ll agree with that. I’m also here because I miss you and I want you to forgive me for letting him come on the mission. I want you to forgive  _ him  _ for being scared of his father and of flouting convention for you, too. I want you to talk to others who care about you to help you through this, because right now, what you’re doing is adding to our pain and not helping yours. I want to  _ talk _ with you again. I want you to take me the way you used to. And if I’m honest, I want you and Remus -  _ both _ \- for Christmas, because Sirius, I know I’m in love with you, but I think I could be falling for him, too, and you’re already mad for each other but I’m  _ not  _ going to try to press your case with him if you won’t even talk to me and tell me if that’s something you still even want.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, letting himself fall down onto her and nuzzle into her neck. “I was trying to give you space. I didn’t think I could give it to you if I had hands to touch you, to… to compulsively check you for bruises when you might not want to be touched. Arms to hold you when you needed not to be held. I’ll try to talk to the blasted mind healer. You don’t... you don’t need to insert me in the middle of whatever you have with Remus, I-”

“- _ I _ want you there.” she insisted, cutting him off and pulling his face up to hers so she could look him in the eye. “Whoever you want can be in the middle.”

He nipped at her lower lip. “This is pandering.”

She smiled. “This is heaven. I haven’t held you without the dog breath in ages.”

He sighed. “I missed you so much I’ve elected not to be offended by that remark.”

She scowled. “There have only been three nights I haven’t slept with puppy-you since you talked the grief-mad wolf down and carried me out of that barn, Sirius. My sheets are covered in your damn dog hair. I told you I’m a disaster, but if I’m anyone’s but my own, I’m  _ yours.” _

He looked at her for a long moment. “Just… let’s just hold each other, for now, alright?”

She buried her face in the crook of his neck, only slightly bothered by this and getting less so by the moment. “I would love that.”

He rolled over, pulling her with him to lie half on top of him, one thigh draped over his hips, her head on his shoulder. “I love you, Hermione.”

“Damn right you do.”

❧

Hermione laughed, sitting at the little table in the kitchen with Alice - whose bawdy sense of humor turned out to be rather irrepressible once she’d let it off the leash. 

But then two tiny naked boys ran past, pursued by a harried looking Frank. “Alice, some help!” he squeaked as he rounded the corner. 

Alice shrugged, standing and pursuing. “Duty calls!”

A moment after she disappeared, she skidded back into the doorway, though, looking crafty. “They look like they need a bath, though. Going to take at least an hour - maybe more - to persuade them to get in, then persuade them to get out, so… the Floo’s yours.”

Then she ran off with a wink.

Hermione sat a moment, considering her last biscuit, before she left it and, second guessing herself twice first, opened the jar of Floo powder on the mantle, standing hesitant in front of the fire. 

“Dammit, just… just do it, Hermione,” she grumbled at herself. 

Before she could come to her senses, she dashed some powder down at the grate, whispering, “Narcissa’s.”

She emerged into the unfamiliar cottage’s homey kitchen to see a familiar woman leaning out the half-open Dutch door, calling for her son. 

“Frank and Alice have him,” she said, startling her host, who turned around in a flash, wand up. 

Hermione raised her hands. “Oops! Em. Don’t shoot? Draco’ll be there for a bath with Neville - mud and all. Look, sorry, I didn’t mean to …”

But before Hermione could say another word, Narcissa had shoved the fruit bowl to the floor and pushed her down onto the long breakfast table, climbing up onto it after her and kissing her emphatically. “What  _ took you _ so long?” she panted, pulling her dress off over her head before attacking Hermione’s shirt, clawing it off over her head, then pulling Hermione up with her so they were sitting front to front, lacy brassiere catching on lacy brassiere. 

Hermione started to reach for delicacies so temptingly displayed, but Narcissa smacked her hand away. “Not yet. Not this time,” she said, thrusting her hand down the front of Hermione’s trousers and into her knickers, teasing her folds apart with clever fingers until she could reach…

“... oh, fuck, Cissa,” Hermione breathed, her head dropping back as the other woman’s fingers expertly circled her most sensitive spot, going almost immediately damp as Narcissa teased through a litany of pressures and patterns, torturously plying her greater experience.

Then Hermione managed to get her mouth on Narcissa’s again, tongues twining as she got her own hand under Narcissa’s knickers before dragging her fingers through the wet slick of her, breaking her kiss to moan piteously into the blonde’s mouth. “Is this for me?” she asked, slowly sucking the salt-honey from her finger, relishing the scent, the dark-blown pale blue eyes. “Tell me… tell me how you want me to touch you.”

“Learn me,” Narcissa whispered, shuddering and wandlessly vanishing all their underthings as Hermione’s hand crept down once more.

Narcissa held Hermione’s waist with one arm, teasing her with a more and more constant rhythm with the other hand as Hermione explored every petal and crevice under her sopping fingertips. “Mmm… inside, but… thumb outside… Narcissa gasped, struggling to maintain eye contact as her eyes fluttered at this or that motion Hermione traced over her sensitive skin.

Hermione smiled, leaning forehead to forehead, “How many?”

Narcissa shuddered, eyes lovely and glazed in anticipation a moment as she imagined. “Let’s find out.”

So as Narcissa held them together, teasing Hermione around and about a precipice, Hermione teased one, then two, then three, then a torturous four fingers up into her lovely lover, beckoning her closer from within as her thumb pressed and swirled without.

Their eyes stayed locked together, creating such an intimate space between them Hermione’s heart hurt. “Merlin, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever touched,” she breathed. “Do you like this?”

Narcissa rode her hand with little circles of her hips, biting her own lower lip. “Circe, yes. Never stop. Never, never stop.”

Hermione smirked, kissing her before whispering into her panting mouth. “I want to use my fist, if you’d like that. Do you want that, Cissa? Do you want my entire hand?”

Narcissa shuddered, her perfect curtain of waist length hair shimmering around her as she ground down on Hermione’s hand. “Next time,” she whispered. 

Hermione nodded, kissing Cissa and using here thumb to play some half-intuited arcane erotic melody over Narcissa’s center while slowly, carefully, she experimented with thrusting her fingers and, a while later, achingly, spreading them apart. 

Narcissa came exquisitely, building with a soft, breathy wail, so high, after the depth of her speaking voice. She rode thrusts Hermione’s fingers shuddering through thrusts and thrusts with a full body tremor and that one sustained note, until finally she cried out, loud giving way to deep over several shuddering plunges of Hermione’s hand. Cissa bore down in waves so intense Hermione thought they might break her fingers… until she, too, plummeted over the precipice, beyond caring about injury, seeing only overcome tears filling exquisite grey-blue eyes. Narcissa’s embrace bound them together as they rode out the ecstasy, legs entangled, never looking away. 

❧

Hermione stumbled back through her grate with her hair still damp, her legs cultish-clumsy after the afternoon’s exertions. There had been, it turned out, quite a few rooms Narcissa had wished to introduce her to in the cottage, and then there’d been the bath… well. Draco’d stayed at the Longbottoms’ for dinner, and Hermione had returned to the castle resolved not to engage in mutual oral gratification on stairs again and rather hopeful she might still catch dinner. 

And then came the knock at the door.

She straightened herself as best she could and then went to open it. 

For Severus. 

She beckoned him in, asking him to give her a moment as she knelt and summoned Dobby, giving him some coins and asking if he might grab some food and a bottle of firewhiskey from down at the Three Broomsticks. 

And then she followed Severus into the study, where he stood skimming the spines along her bookshelves. 

She leaned back against the far wall and watched him do it. So many expressions ran over his typically-controlled face - curiosity, disdain, respect, disgust, affection, envy, surprise…

“What in…” He trailed off, blinking in shock as he plucked a battered textbook from her shelf, then presented it to her.

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “I believe I mentioned that at some point. Rescued it from the Room of Hidden Things for you. In my timeline, Harry found it, started getting top marks in potions, and royally pissed me off.”

His eyes widened.

She sighed. “And… maybe also nearly killed Draco after a misunderstanding, by trying  _ Sectumsempra  _ in an act of blind trust in his hero, the Half-Blood Prince, without knowing what it would do.”

Severus gaped in horror, looking from the book to her. She shrugged. “Won’t happen again. But, well… careful, there, virtuoso.”

He put it down on the table, dripping with self-hatred. “I can’t believe it even had to happen once. How could I have been so careless?”

Hermione stepped closer. “You were alone and desolate in a place in your life where you thought the best you could hope for was to be more in control of than under the thrall of pain. You told me that, Severus, if not in so many words. You were in pain, daring the world you didn’t think could possibly be any worse to prove you wrong.”

His hands clenched and released at his sides once, twice, and then he turned to her. “I miss you,” he murmured, his voice breaking.

He was the last bridge she had yet to recross.

His eyes were so open, so deep, so raw. He was so much more volatile, so much more dangerous. 

He needed love so much  _ more. _

She stepped up to him, letting him curve around her without touching for a moment, warm and reticent and so very careful. And then she crossed over to him, throwing her arms around his neck. 

Only to be scooped up against him so hard it was difficult to breath as he shook with relief, burying his face in her hair and breathing deep. 

Finally, he loosened his grasp a little, letting her feet return to the ground as he gently stroked the sides of her face. “Spend the night with me,” he begged.

She smiled, nodding. 

His eyes flickered up a moment. “My quarters? I half expect Laurel and Hardy to be perched on the end of your bed, wagging their tails, if we wake  _ here _ .”

She laughed, nodding and shooting a Patronus to Dobby before she let him tug her through the Floo.


	55. More Distant Ties

###  DECEMBER 14, 1981

“Ah, Professor Granger! I have been meaning to talk with you,” Hermione heard with a bit of a start as she walked through the oft-unoccupied Head’s Office, intent on breakfast and not particularly concerned about her surroundings. 

Blinking, she looked up and climbed the stairs to stand in front of the desk where her old Headmaster was bent over parchment, writing. “Getting me used to the title, I see,” she murmured with mixed feelings. 

He glanced up briefly, the slightest smirk on his lips, before looking back down at what he wrote. “Heavy is the head that charms the chalk. Best acclimate to what you can sooner rather than later. It is a lonely place, even for those who are… ambitiously sociable… to be put on a pedestal by students.” 

Hermione snorted with laughter. “Loneliness won’t be very new, nor pedestals.”

Dumbledore kept writing as if he didn’t hear her for a moment before he finally pushed away the piece of parchment, rested his quill in an inkpot, and looked up. “It’s different. You’ll see. But that’s not primarily what I wanted to speak with you about.”

Hermione nodded, folding her arms in subconscious wariness of the level of … lead-in required by whatever was on Albus’s mind. “How can I help, then?” she asked, smiling a bit nervously.

Dumbledore, seeing her tension, smiled a little. “When will the children arrive here for the holiday?”

Hermione blinked. “Em… they’ll be here from Saturday through Boxing Day. I think both Potterswood and Long’s Bottom-”

Dumbledore interjected, grinning, “-Is  _ that _ what Alice and Frank have called it, then?”

Hermione nodded, scrunching her nose and smiling at the slight absurdity of it before continuing. “Yes, it is - but I think both houses have nursery space prepared - so that when the babies have burnt down one house, the other can welcome them in again while the beleaguered adults mount rebuilding efforts.” She shook her head. “And we’ve sort of bridged the Floos open to the Longbottom and Black quarters here, so that traipsing from one place to the next shouldn’t be difficult. Although,” Hermione made a little moue of concern, “I need to figure out how… em… mature Molly’s twins are before that’s advertised much, as she and Arthur will be hosting Christmas Eve at the Burrow but the lot of them all will be running amok here more otherwise and… let’s just say I don’t believe Peeves ever saluted the Marauders.” She stilled, biting her lip. “I guess I’ll… I’ll be introducing myself and Harry to Ron a bit early, then. That should be a lark.”

Albus nodded, watching her think and fret as the various chaotic possibilities tessellated in endlessly branching complexity across her mind. “I believe… the young folk should survive each other, and we, them. We’ve also a request from some Order Members to have a sort of brunch here together on Boxing Day, during which I’m sure many would appreciate the opportunity to give Harry a hug and a ruffle to his hair if he’d permit it.”

Hermione’s brow knit. “You’ll have to make those who would obviously fawn over him stay home, then. You weren’t wrong that being brought up around sycophants wouldn’t bring out the best in any child, and they’re already nearing the age of healthy narcissism. 

Albus regarded her thoughtfully. “I had thought, Hermione, that you hadn’t children of your own. Was I…?” he trailed off as she blinked furiously.

“Em… no, you weren’t, quite, only… well.” She sighed, finally sinking into one of the comfortable chairs across the desk from Albus. “I had … I had a part in the raising of Remus’s son, Teddy, before.”

Albus mouthed an  _ aah _ , nodding. “I didn’t mean to raise a painful subject.”

Hermione slumped, kneading with her fingers at the knot of tension between her brows. “It’s… it’s just odd to think that I could be a reason why he’ll never be born.”

Albus glanced down. “And… are you aware of a soulbond between Remus and his child’s mother, in your time?”

Hermione blinked. “Godric, no. I mean. They’re vanishingly rare, aren’t they? I guess I wouldn’t necessarily have known, but… huh.” She glanced off to the side for a long moment. “Headmaster, do you know,” she murmured, still mulling, eyes darting around as her brain worked, “do you know what Narcissa will need to do for the sake of appearances or plausible double-agent-credibility with respect to Lucius or, say, Bellatrix, over the holidays? Or what she might be expected to do with respect to the estranged Andromeda? I admit I don’t fully understand, still, the machinations of how the Sacred 28 work, where etiquette is concerned - I didn’t get to take the class Molly will be helping teach.”

Dumbledore leaned forward, resting his weight on his elbows and steepling his fingers. “Putting aside my curiosity about the change of subject, I suspect that Professor Malfoy would be the best judge of that. I could hazard a guess, but she’d be the best person to ask of her plans. And to remind that there may be paths… newly open to her. It is hard to break the bounds one has become accustomed to operating within, and I do not know that she has considered the possibility of reconciling with the Tonks family.” He sighed. “She will be expected to make an appearance at Azkaban, though - of that I am certain.”

Hermione fidgeted a moment in her chair, tangling her fingers as she thought. “Huh. Alright. I can talk to her. But… is this what you wished to talk to  _ me _ about, sir?”

Dumbledore waved a hand, shaking his head. “I get to  _ professor  _ you  _ and  _ to tell you to stop  _ sirring _ me, Hermione. Headmaster’s privilege. But no, it isn’t quite. I wanted, rather, to make you aware that Minerva would be taking a sort of Christmastime vacation from her honeymoon, this coming week, and to alert you to the possibility she’ll… have a rather pressing thing to talk to you about when she returns. I expect her Wednesday. I would strongly advise you to clear some time that evening and Thursday because I believe you’ll have much to discuss.”

Hermione peered at him in perplexity. “Professor?”

Dumbledore held up his hands. “That may already be more than I ought to have said, and I cannot venture more. A friend you can confide in who doesn’t scruple to upbraid you up one side and down the other, but who you know will always hug you on the holidays, is precious beyond reckoning for a tangled old anomaly like me. Consider the pedestal a hapless old man might accidentally occupy, Professor Granger, despite having tried to divest himself of ambitious acts for the alleged  _ greater good. _ ” He scoffed over the last, shaking his head and standing to drift over to a window.

Hermione sat back, watching him look out over the grounds. “Do you ever visit Nurmengard, Albus?”

Dumbledore started to look back over his shoulder, but stopped before he met her eyes. “I… no. I haven’t. Not in all these many years.”

Hermione watched him, quiet. 

Eventually, he sighed. “You think I should.”

She shrugged. “I think… that the Dumbledore I grew up knowing could have used some closure I don’t think he ever had.”

Albus snorted softly, shaking his head. “I cannot think that-”

“-He laughed in Voldemort’s face, sir,” Hermione interjected quietly, watching the Headmaster still. “He protected y-you,” she stammered, nearly saying  _ your memory _ , “and… and the world, in the end, and it cost him his life. Harry saw it. And I think… I think you and I may both know that he hasn’t made much of an attempt to escape, in all this time - that in all this time, he otherwise may likely have succeeded. You might have words worth exchanging with each other.”

Dumbledore was quiet for a long moment. “I hardly think that my visit would go unremarked. Despite myself I’ve become a public figure who occupies powerful offices, Hermione. Forgive an old fool his arrogance, but I haven’t felt there were better candidates for posts I’ve held - well, though I suppose there are good candidates for this one I hold dearest. That is besides the point, however, that my discredit would affect more than just my own life and I can’t afford to court it for mere sentimentality.”

Hermione shrugged, standing up and walking over to venture a light arm around her old mentor. “I think you also know that no one would ever never need to know you were there. Leave Friday open. I’ll… I’ll hex you if you do something stupid and keep your wand out of sight after you  _ Disillusion _ us.”

Albus folded his arms and looked down at her, a bit affronted. “And you think you can hide it better than me, do you?”

Hermione shrugged. “From Gellert Grindelwald? Sure I do.”

Dumbledore, she realized after a quiet several seconds, was sticking out his lower lip. She laughed. “The most powerful wizard of the age does  _ mutinousness _ ? Seriously?” She guffawed and bumped him with her hip. 

Fuming, after a moment, he bumped her back with his, knocking her a foot away with an indignant squawk. “You  _ barmy _ …!” 

Albus smirked a little, shrugging as he looked over his shoulder at her. 

And then they both laughed, eventually recovering and walking down to the Great Hall to eat together.


	56. Late Adoption

### DECEMBER 16, 1981

Hermione was sitting in the common sitting area at the end of the hall, surrounded by rings of open books festooned with book darts she’d charmed different colors, with no fewer than four different quills about her person. One, behind her ear, had left a streak of emerald-colored ink down her neck, and another, thrust into her messy bun to secure it, had painted a black streak in her hair. She was thoughtfully chewing the end of another while annotating her February lesson plans when she heard an explosive shriek from the other end of the hall and sat up straight in alarm. 

“WHAT?!” came the commanding (if somewhat shrill) outburst. 

Then, the Head’s Tower shook.

“And you did not notify me _at once_ WHY?!” Hermione heard as she stood and jogged down the hall, pulling out her wand and readying herself to aim while slowly inching open the door into Dumbledore’s office.

“Minerva,” she heard Albus plead, apparently from some unseen place behind his desk as she peered through the slim crack she’d opened, “There was _nothing_ you could have done! You only have a honeymoon once, and I knew you would be back soon - and besides, I know that things have been, well, rather _tense_ yet, and I didn’t think that adding more strain to a charged situation-”

“-That was _not_ for you to decide, Albus! Have you any inkling of a notion…! Oh, you infuriating old _tactician_ ,” McGonagall spat as she strode into view - only just her face, then her hand, then back again, “forgetting what you toy with are humans with hearts!”

Hermione blinked as a hex blasted several now-singed papers from the top of the desk and Albus stood up from behind it, scowling indignantly. “Minverva you of all people know damned well that I _do_ have some inkling, and that is _why-”_

“-You!” Minerva growled, sending a barrage that sent Albus skidding a foot back while holding a shield charm, “do NOT,” he paled and ducked under a fiery bolt of something, blinking furiously, “ _make_ that decision for me, or mine! I’ll have your beard for a bow string, you arrogant old...” 

Hermione lost the thread as Minerva broke into a scathing spurt of Gàidhlig and casting.

Dumbledore wrinkled his nose and squinted as a noxious smoke began to bubble up from the stones of the floor and McGonagall finally came fully into view - stalking forward with wand drawn, looking more fierce with the mahogany still in her hair and the roses yet in her cheeks now than she had even dueling Snape in what was, by now, another world. 

Hermione squeaked and dashed into the room, casting an _Immobulus_ on Minerva and running over, coughing, to throw open all the windows as Albus coughed and panted and helped, wide-eyed. 

Fortunately, there was a breeze, and the smoke cleared quickly. 

Hermione and Albus has sunk down along the upper, outer wall, crouching and catching their breath beneath the windows. Hermione glanced over at the headmaster quizzically. “What in the hell was that about? And could you _please_ not lose a duel with that mad thing?” she groused. “That’s _all_ we need right now, it flipping its allegiance!”

Albus blinked in surprise as he followed her sightline to his wand, then hastily stuffed it up his sleeve. “I could never hurt Minerva, Hermione,” he mumbled grumbled, standing, “Possibly not even if I tried. But... we shall talk _more_ about this at a later date, as you’ve hinted more than enough to be beyond coincidence now.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and stood up herself, brushing herself off. Then she looked over at the glowering, threatening magnificence that was an enraged Minerva McGonagall. “Huh,” she said, inadvertently stalled. “When we need to commission a statue someday, this is the memory I’m going to bottle for the sculptor.” 

Dumbledore nodded, grimacing. “You may both be better served by my stepping away a moment before you remove the spell.”

Hermione darted a glance at him. “Why’s that? What exactly happened she’s so angry you didn’t tell her about?”

Dumbledore drew in a ragged breath, smiling apologetically. “The harm that came to _you_ , my dear. As I said, I believe you’ll find you have much to discuss today.”

Hermione looked nervous as the Headmaster strode rather quickly toward the door into the hall she’d recently emerged from. “Em… she won’t curse me, do you think?”

Albus flashed her a rare grin and shrugged before closing the door behind him, but she did hear his voice receding down the hall. “I sincerely doubt it, but one never knows!”

Hermione blinked, slowly approaching Minerva before, after a moment’s hesitation, easing her wand out of her clenched hand. 

“Okay, Professor… em… please no more channeling Boudica for a moment, alright? I’m about to let you loose - on one, two…”

On three, Minerva dashed one more step forward, completing the movement she’d been in the midst of, then sagged, chest heaving, before turning to Hermione - who was holding out her wand to her. 

Minerva stepped right past Hermione’s outstretched arm and gathered her up in a crushing embrace. “You mad bairn, what on _earth_ possessed you to put yourself at such _risk_ ? This world and its evil wastrels aren’t worth _you_ being hurt so. Can I not leave for an instant without… oh, just let me look at you!”

Hermione, shocked, eventually meekly submitted to examination as Minerva sniffled and looked her up and down. 

Finally, Minerva sank into one of the armchairs near the hearth and produced a thistle-embroidered handkerchief to dab at her eyes. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. Those puffskein-prodding villains would never have made it to Azkaban, never have grandstanded another day or plotted another catastrophe. I never thought I’d be half so convinced I should act on the damnable Scottish Compromise.” She shook her head, summoning a tray of tea and digestives onto the small table between her chair and its mate with a wave of her wand. “You look well - em, but… will you sit and tell me how you are?”

Hermione hesitantly stepped over and sat down. Minerva was already, despite shaking hands, pouring a touch of sugar and a dash of milk into her cup. “I still think it’s barbaric, this indifference to whether the tea or the fripperies go in first, but, well.” 

Hermione took a moment to find her voice under Minerva’s anxious, expectant regard - and it was not about how she was doing, precisely. “The Scottish Compromise… what, of 1252? With the Wizard’s Council, to merge the Scots’ Wanded Gathering into the Council already governing Wales, Cornwall, and England?”

Minerva shook her head, taking a first sip of her own tea. “I know he’s a colleague, but I haven’t the _slightest_ notion of how you managed to stay awake to retain _anything_ from Cuthburt. He was already an intolerable lecturer already before he died.”

Hermione blinked, shaking her head and waving Minerva’s comment aside. “It was from a Bagshot book, not Binns - I think it was in _The Decline of Pagan Magic._ But… as I recall, the provisions of the compromise were that … that women and people of all ethnicities could serve on the Council-”

Minerva nodded primly. “-You’re welcome.”

“-and that… that Scottish Clan Feuds would not be outlawed or forbidden to cross borders?” Hermione scrunched up her face in puzzlement. “What does _that_ have to do with anything?”

Minerva, now, looked down thoughtfully into her tea cup, which was barely rattling on its saucer anymore. “Well. Especially in the Highlands, we have a rather mystical and complex relationship with fairness and honor. And, well, _rage_.”

Hermione looked at Minerva, now mildly sipping her tea, warily for a moment before speaking. “Em. If it helps, you’re going to get _much_ better at controlling your temper in the next decade or so.”

Minerva’s tea shot from her nose as she laugh-coughed, grabbing her kerchief from her lap and mopping herself up as she settled into a chortle. “You don’t say? Perhaps Elphinstone is the man for me after all.”

Hermione’s brow knitted in affront. “Minerva McGonagall doesn’t need any man’s influence to assert greater control over herself!”

Minerva arched a brow. “Oh, does she not, then? Good to know. Can’t _hurt_ , though,” she mused, sipping her tea again. 

Hermione shook her head. “Were there other provisions?”

Minerva shrugged. “Border adjustments here, damages paid there, some prisoners of war freed, including one of my Ross ancestors, but that was the most of it. But the important one was the feuding, I fear. Unbeknownst to me, until just now at least, next I return to my brother’s house, the ledger there will show that the House of Ross-McGonagall now harbors a blood feud against the House of Lestrange.”

Hermione’s face scrunched in befuddlement. “What… is it that I don’t know?”

Minerva sighed, fiddling with a biscuit and crumbling bits of it onto her saucer. “I suspect, now I’ve come to know you a bit, that it’s not _as much_ to do with Ross-McGonagall as another illustrious family, but your joining one entailed the other. Hermione, when you came here… well. Apparently, you may leave a world, but you cannot leave a family. I was rather taken aback about it at first - the stakes… they are high, and everything about your appearance was beyond suspicious - which I hope that you can understand and forgive me for.” Minerva took a deep breath, gathering herself before she continued. “It turns out that, once upon _your_ time, _your original_ Minerva McGonagall, famously needless of the influence of men and mistress of her own substantial temper, adopted one Hermione Granger - _you_ \- as her daughter, and thus pulled you into not only her - _my_ \- family, but another whose future we’ve held in trust since my grandmother’s day, according to ancient rites of succession and centuries of tradition.”


	57. Surprise Legacy

###  INVERNESS VICINITY, SCOTLAND - DECEMBER 17, 1981

“This is positively  _ mad,” _ grumbled Hermione, though the wind snatched up her words immediately and buffeted them away. 

Sighing, she buried her face in the feathery neck ahead of her until her nose hit soft down and she heard a pleased little rumble from the Hippogriff’s throat. 

“Yeah, thanks Graywing. Sorry for all the throwing up earlier.”

While Hermione’s manners were impeccable enough to ease introduction to her mount, she still hated flying, and right now, the undulation of wing-powered movement had her thinking fondly of brooms. Apparently, however, they didn’t work near their destination. Minerva had said that it used to be only griffins that could fly in, until they were hunted to the edge of extinction. It seemed that the repopulation efforts that were finally gaining some ground in Hermione’s time had yet to launch, here, with rare specimens in private menageries and no government intervention to see to the species’ welfare, yet. 

_ Fucking 1980s _ , she thought, scratching her nose without lifting her face from the warmth of her new friend’s neck feathers. Apparently  _ this  _ creature had enough in common with the griffin that, she remembered hearing, once, the two species could have sort of mule offspring.

And riding it was better than coming in in a proverbial handbasket, she supposed.

❧

By the time Graywing touched down, Hermione, despite her nausea, had been lulled into nodding off. With the jarring impact of hooves and talons on stone, the dozing witch slid off over the Hippogriff’s dappled shoulder with a belated yelp, mercifully arrested mid-air by a hover charm cast by Minerva. 

Which let out to let her drop the remaining inch to the ground after a moment. 

When she stood up, Hermione blinked and looked around. They were on a tower overlooking a long, narrow loch - and, on the far side, she could see the ruins of another castle fitted with various tourist conveniences. 

“You’ve no idea how irritated my grandmother was by the constant view of Muggle tourists. Her parents were perhaps a shade more tolerable than young Harry’s aunt and uncle, from what I understand, but she was glad to be emancipated from them by her own adoption when it came.” Minerva sniffed. “They, of course, only see the woods on this side.” 

Hermione shook her head slowly as she turned on the spot, looking at the other towers - all octagonal - and the bulk of the building they soared above. She would later remember that one of her first thoughts was how absurd it seemed to make the entire edifice of something as dear as marble. The castle was surrounded by slender birches and smatterings of yellow-blooming gorse - the sort of woods to be had at this altitude in harsh country, she supposed.

She could not tell how far the grounds stretched, but the castle at least was considerably smaller than Hogwarts - though it dwarfed Balmoral. And, apparently, had been largely unoccupied for most of its many years.

“Merlin’s pants!” Hermione hissed, shivering in the high-elevation winds. 

Minerva cocked her head. “As you say. Now you’ve been here, you’ll be able to Apparate back.” She turned to the Hippogriffs, then. “Graywing, Swifttalon,” she bowed, “Thank you for your assistance - you may return home now, with our thanks.”

Hermione followed Minerva as their mounts lifted off, and watched the older witch tap a pattern on the stone floor, causing a stair to appear and descend. “After you,” said the elder witch. 

Hermione shook her head, still not really believing all of this as she started the long climb down. 

❧

They got stuck, of course, in the library. Minerva, as the only non-Ravenclaw in her family, grudgingly understood. More than a millennium’s original journals, diaries, and works by the most influential Irish and British Muggleborn witches and wizards could be found here and, often, no where else - along with whatever additions each made to the collection along the way. 

“This is  _ mad _ ,” Hermione mumbled, momentarily visible dashing through an aisle into the continuation of a row of tall, elegant marble shelves. “This is absolutely ruddy  _ mad!  _ One person? One person inherits this? It’s a traves… my gods, is that grimoire by  _ Da Vinci?!” _

Minerva sighed and sat down on one of the supple leather chesterfields that littered the several-story expanse. “Yes, it may be a travesty, but you  _ are _ permitted to share it with others - as I could not. You were irrevocably appointed secret keeper upon your adoption, which gives you a degree of freedom with how this all is used. And… while I understand that you’re very taken with the collection - I’ve spent months here myself over the years, often sleeping on the couches in lieu of my own chamber - we really  _ do  _ need to get you down to the foyer to be properly introduced.”

Hermione leaned around the edge of another row, deeper toward the wall of stained glass-edged windows. “Introduced?”

Minerva sighed. “There’s a book you must sign, and a welcome to read, and quite an extensive staff to greet. You don’t think this is all self-maintaining, do you?”

“The hell am I to know?! You think I’ve  _ any  _ experience of magical estates? I’ve mostly only seen the Malfoys’ drawing room, and I was quite distracted at the time! It’s the one important thing that isn’t much written of, because it’s assumed either you know or you aren’t worthy of learning - I need to start interrogating Molly and Dobby and Narcissa about it better.” Hermione slid the folio of plays she’d never seen before back onto its shelf and muttered under her breath. “Fuckity fuck fuck  _ fuck,  _ I am  _ definitely _ having some sort of wish-fulfilling dying dream. This cannot be real, at all.”

Suddenly, Minerva was beside her, huffing testily. “Well, you’ll hardly be the first inheritor with a penchant for profanity, I suppose, but  _ really _ , Hermione.”

A startled Hermione, meanwhile, jumped and dropped a clay tablet that shattered at her feet. 

Then gaped at the shards like she needed to go up to the tower again to step off of it. 

McGonagall shook her head and sighed. “Are you a witch or aren’t you? Honestly.”

With a quick  _ Reparo _ , the damage was undone - and with another wordless spell, Hermione’s various finds zoomed from her arms along with it back to their proper shelves. 

Hermione stood gulping like a goldfish, torn between intense gratitude and indignation.

Minerva shrugged. “Can you imagine how much better the school library would be if I were allowed to install this organization charm there? Ah well, little to be done - come away now.”

❧

“He was  _ Muggleborn?!” _ Hermione squealed, bouncing on her toes as she read the series of plaques surrounding a rather gallant statue of Godric Gryffindor in the grand foyer. 

Minerva nodded. “And childless - he and his paramor, Hufflepuff, had both known famine and want in their childhoods. They didn’t wish to have children of their own when so many already went without. So he used his winnings from his various duels to fund… well,  _ this _ , as well as its rather unusual scheme of inheritance.”

Hermione looked up, shaking her head in confusion. “And  _ you  _ are the person who it fell to to determine who the next heir would be because…?”

Minerva rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder, cracking a stubborn joint just left of her neck. “Because my grandmother, Caitrìona, was the last named heir, and as she named no successor herself, and I am the first sorted Gryffindor in my family since her time, it falls to me. My family has stewarded it as best we could in the interim, but were unable to tell anyone of it after her death until, well,  _ you. _ ”

Hermione shut her eyes, processing. “This is… I don’t even know  _ what _ this is.”

Minerva sighed, nodding. “I can imagine. It’s strange enough, frankly, to have the relationship I do with the place. It’s both perfectly updated and completely removed from time, somehow. Eerie. Beguiling. Exceptional in its potential and… frankly, somewhat  _ wasted  _ in its use, for most of its existence. My grandmother was a healer and she brought patients here, Muggle and Magical alike, along with a few trusted colleagues during the World Wars and the conflict with Grindelwald. All were  _ Confunded  _ or  _ Obliviated _ on their departure. This has been a very, very quiet place since. But I do know that Godric’s legacy is intended to help each inheritor to where she can do the most good - and have their bravery most tried.”

Hermione shook her head. “It’s mad.”

Minerva nodded. “Yes, you may have mentioned that.”

Hermione scowled. “Are you actually sassing me right now?”

The older witch smirked. “What, you didn’t know I did that in your own time?”

Hermione threw up her hands in frustration. “Yes! No! Look, the last time I saw  _ you _ , we were starting to get on, but you don’t have the shared experience of half my lifetime to judge me on that she did, and it was only very near the end…  _ shit,”  _ she swore. “The map she was bringing! The map  _ you _ had, too! It was of here! Wait a minute, is that Loch  _ sodding _ Ness out there? Don’t tell me - with all this magical fracass, there actually  _ is  _ a monster, isn’t there?”

Minerva actually looked offended. “No, of course there’s not!”

Hermione felt momentarily relieved.

“It’s more of a traditional prank, really!”

Hermione’s eyes widened and she wobbled, a house elf flashing into view to place a chair behind her and immediately flashing out again before she had fallen all the way into it. 

Minerva summoned herself a chair and sat down to wait. 

Some minutes later, Hermione finally looked up again. “Did she … you… somehow sever the magic of my familial ties to my blood relatives, to enable this?”

Minerva shook her head. “No. In magical communities there’s what, in Muggle circles, is becoming a rather antiquated allowance for young people to be adopted as wards. You are my daughter by law and magic - indeed, thanks to Voldemort and his minions, I can have no other but by similar means, though I was never sure I wanted to in the first place,” she sniffed, perhaps subconsciously rubbing her hand low on her stomach through her tartan robes. “But… you are  _ also  _ still your own parents’ daughter. You get to keep both. Gryffindor’s magic prefers it, however, when someone… who has  _ lacked  _ a place to belong and a family to value is given this place. I should add that sometimes it’s given to a  _ spouse _ , rather than an adopted child - it can be passed to any superlative Muggleborn mage who has, in some way, become a part of the chooser’s family. Were you, perhaps, estranged from your parents, in your time?”

Hermione’s head dropped back with a groan, hanging over the back of her chair for a moment before another elf appeared, expertly switched that chair from under her for another with a higher back that supported her neck, and then disappeared again.

Hermione blinked. “Why don’t they hold still a minute? Aren’t introductions on the list for today?”

Minerva seemed to consider her words a moment. “I think perhaps we should leave that for the next visit. The staff is extensive and it seems you are already quite preoccupied with everything you have to take in.”

Hermione sat forward, eyes suddenly blazing. “Minerva, are the elves here  _ paid?  _ I  _ will not  _ own slaves.”

McGonagall smirked as she stood up, banishing her chair away again. “In fact, those employed here have been paid since Godric’s time - he shared some of your quirks, it seems. There are Goblins also on the staff, among those I’ve met anyway, and all employed here tend to be the children of generations before them. They keep the place’s secrets and enjoy more freedom than they might anywhere else in Wizarding Britain.”

Hermione blinked. Then she squeaked before calling out, “Dobby! Dobby Dobby  _ Dobby!  _ You have to see this, please come!”

“Yes, Miss Professor Hermione?” the elf said, popping into existence and looking around the hall in confusion. “Oh, Miss, I hopes you are not in trouble - where  _ is _ we, in so grand a place?”

Hermione swept him up into a hug, which he returned happily enough after a moment of confusion. “Dobby,  _ this  _ is a stronghold of free, paid elves that has stood for more than a thousand years. And however odd it may be, it’s sort of… in my keeping, for a while. Which means it’s in yours, too.”

Dobby’s years flopped down flat in disbelief. “Miss, is you feeling well?”

She nodded, eyes pooling a bit. “Yes… I’m…  _ look _ , if only for you, this is a good thing, alright? Will you… would you like to go and meet others who are like you, and tell me about them? When you’re done - take your time. I’ve… I think I’ve got to go back to Hogwarts before my head explodes.”

Dobby looked at her in concern. “You is using figures in speech again, isn’t you?”

She nodded. 

Dobby smiled a little. “Good. No exploding heads. You is alright to go home?”

She nodded again, a little too choked up to speak. “We’re going to bloody well free you all if I have a say in it, Dobby. Every last elf.”

Dobby smiled a bit skeptically, patted the back of her hand, and then disappeared.


	58. Overwhelmed

### HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Minerva had a few things to see to, and so suggested Hermione leave without her to return to Hogwarts. There’d been an awkward beat before a brusque hug and a gentle push toward a door that opened onto a balcony - apparently one just needed to be somewhere outside the building in order to Apparate out of Gryffinhold. 

Hermione reached the more familiar castle’s gate in a growing state of numb shock. She stumbled a moment on landing and caught herself on the high iron fence before she could fall, then just gazed up at the soaring towers, the stolid gate. Flickering in her memory, she saw an overlay on the scene, one of roiling clouds marring the indifferent gray sky, a wards of greenish tinge being tested by Death Eaters in flight. A hard blink restored the stillness of the school, for now at peace. Another blink and Acromantulas and Giants, Centaurs and _children_ , clashed madly on the long, sloping lawn. Another; gone.

Feet heavy, she started to make her way back up to the enormous doors, inexorably reminded of heaps of people lying in tidy rows whimpering - or worse still, lying silent. How many sheets had she conjured to cover their bodies? A long breath, a pause with her eyes closed, and indifferent turf and the occasional nettle prevailed, the portal no more ominous than it should be again. But she knew she was barely, _barely_ holding back from some sort of brink.

She trudged past the open doors to the Great Hall, and with them her colleagues and the small smattering of students who’d stayed for the hols eating luncheon there. She vaguely heard murmuring and cutlery clinking from that direction, but didn’t want to look and risk the appearance of another, grimmer scene flickering into her view.

She flinched away from a wall she’d stood too near when it imploded on her way up the stairs and stumbled, crashing heavily to her knees on the landing. Her ears roared and she let herself sink there, scuffed and bruised, holding her palms pressed tight over her eyes as she slumped sideways against the banister.

“Fuck,” she heard, dimly, from somewhere behind her, twitching her body into a smaller shape, huddled against the newal. 

A moment later, she smelled something comforting, felt the subtle disturbance of air and sound that signified a person’s slow approach.

Had it not been for the smell of him she wouldn’t have been able to stand it.

“Hermione. Hermione, would you like help?” came Sirius’s voice, soft and not so near that it frightened her. 

She winced, trying to angle herself toward him, trying to say _yes_ , but all she got out was a muffled whimper. 

She heard another soft voice, farther away, quietly … instructing, it seemed.

“Hermione, are you having a panic attack?” Sirius asked softly, the sound coming from lower, nearer, between her and the downward flight.

Hermione managed a hoarse “yes.”

“Okay. Okay. Can you…” he paused, listening to the more distant voice, “can you think of anything that might help? Maybe that I can help you with?”

Hermione couldn’t pull her hands from her face - she tried. “Privacy,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

“Okay. Okay. I can make that happen.” Another pause, another whispered exchange, quick and low, “Em, may I touch you, love? Would it be alright if I picked you up? I’d like to take you to your quarters, as it’s rather precarious and exposed here - don’t worry, only Remus and I have seen you,” she shook harder, the ball of her tucked body tightening, “Em, I’m so sorry, Hermione, so sorry, we just… are what we are, we noticed you going by… Remus just hauled me out of dinner, we didn’t tell anyone else, alright? He… he knows how to help.”

There was a careful shuffling sound as another person came up the steps. “Hermione, it’s Remus - I’m just trying to help take care of you. I think you’re on the right track, privacy would help a great deal - I know no one likes to be seen overwhelmed. You’re in control here. You’ve got this handled. We’re just here to help you.”

Hermione whimpered in a way that sounded animal and piteous even to her own ears, inarticulate and raw and whining-high. “No - _no_ , Sirius, wait -” she heard, then, “Hermione, Sirius can pick you up. Can you… can you twitch your fingers just a hair away from your face, maybe, if that’s alright?”

She did. “Good! That’s good!” came Remus’s even but slightly stressed voice as Sirius’ gentle arms lifted her, pulling him tight into the warmth of his chest. She realized, guiltily, that she was shaking with cold but dripping with sweat, ashamed to be seen much less _touched_ like this.

His lips planted a soft, lingering kiss on her forehead all the same, and Remus started talking again. “Alright, Hermione, he’s got you - to your quarters, yes?”

She managed a slight nod, feeling Sirius’s muscles and the different currents of air as he climbed, turned, climbed again. “We’ll have you there shortly, we’ve only a few flights and two halls to go. Hermione, is there anything you usually take - medication, or calming draughts, that I can get for you? No? Alright, would you _like_ a calming draught? I can get one, from my quarters.”

“Can’t… take that… with Wolfsbane…” she got out through her teeth.

“I… yes, you told me that, I remember. I’ve just got a bit of a first aid kit, that’s all, now I’m practicing my potion brewing and apprenticing. Would you like me to get Charity?”

Hermione shook her head emphatically. “Alright! Em. Alright. That’s fine, that’s fine, we’ve got you.”

Up. The muffled, strange sound of someone loping up the moving spiral stair. A door. Another. 

“Alright, Hermione, we’re here. We’re in your rooms. I’m… is it alright if I take your shoes off for you?”

Hermione started to cry, managing to nod even as she took the incredible-seeming leap to peel her hands away from her eyes and throw her arms tight around Sirius’ neck, burying her face in the crook between it and and his shoulder. She could smell her own fear-soured sweat and cringed, but couldn’t bring herself to lower her arms from him.

As Remus eased her boots from her feet, she realized her entire body was shaking. Mostly, though, she just tried to focus on the low, nonsensical cooing Sirius was doing into her hair, pressing intermittent kisses to her temple as if to hush the roiling turmoil inside her head.

“Pull the covers down,” she heard Sirius gruffly instruct their friend.

“Don’t let me go,” she breathed, feeling her heart pound harder at the thought of him putting her down, alone, freefalling through indifferent space again.

“Never. Never without your permission, my heart. Let me just… oh, _sod_ it…”

She felt him stumble a moment, then just step up onto the mattress, sinking to his knees and slowly easing them both over sideways while a flurry of movement suggested Remus was heaping pillows behind them. And then…

She managed to crack her eyes open, looking down to see Remus scowling as he attempted to disentangle the laces on Sirius’ shoes, which he hadn’t been able to step out of, she belatedly realized. 

There was something so… she didn’t know how to describe it, the one man on the verge of tearing his hair out despite not making a sound over Sirius’s charmed double knots. 

Sirius, still murmuring, cooing, kissing, seemed not to notice. One of his hands had started to stroke her back in a slow, firm, constant rhythm. She felt her heart trying to slow to match it and tremulously pulled a hand free, waving it toward Sirius’ feet. _“Finite,”_ she incanted, wandlessly unspelling his laces.

Remus’s gaze darted up to hers with a flash of verdant gratitude and relief, then he finally pulled the blasted things off.

She closed her eyes, pulling her hand up between her and Sirius. 

“I’ll… I’ll get the draught, in case you decide…”

Hermione whined inarticulately from the back of her throat, shaking her head and flailing her hand back out toward him, extending it to him.

She heard an exhalation, a hesitation. Then, a shuffle.

Remus climbed into the bed behind her, kissing the nape of her neck as he firmly curled his body around her back. “Alright. Alright, then, I won’t… I won’t go.”

❧

She woke again to a sun starting to set, immediately realizing she’d dozed through the earlier afternoon. The clock marked nearly 4, now. 

She was _warm_ again. 

Sirius had an arm threaded under the curve of her waist and tightly around her, pulling her flush against him, their thighs tangled, with her face tucked under his chin. Remus was still there, asleep, too, his left hand locked on her left hip from behind her, his body echoing, conforming to the shape of hers, his breath hot in her hair. His right arm ran under her neck and, she realized, under Sirius’s, his fingers slightly visible where they curved around it from behind. 

Sirius’s right arm, meanwhile, was draped over them both, and, she thought by the press of his thumb between her hip and Remus’s, was fastened on Remus’s hip much the way Remus’s hand was fastened on her own.

It was like being a flower pressed in a book. 

It did nothing to assuage her fears of unreality, however.

She _tried_ . She’s dreamt of this… she’d wanted this… _but not like this, and not,_ she thought, _within another likely dream._

And the tremor started to roll over her again, even there, even between them, pressed warm and safe and loved. She didn’t deserve this - she knew it. It was absurd to think it was real. Absurd and suddenly dissonant, suddenly doubt was wedging its sharp fingers between her and any sense of sanity or reality, pulling her loose into an empty abyss. 

She shivered and started to cry. 

Sirius stirred first, soothing nonsense sounds on his lips before he’d even fully woken. “Ssshhhhh… ssshhh, ssshhh… oh, my love, my love. There, now. There, there.”

His voice seemed to stir Remus, in a stretch of popping joints and deep inhalation. “Shit… Hermione… do you need space? Should we..?”

She shook her head almost violently, cowering in the space between them. “Please don’t let me go,” she sobbed. “Please, I don’t care if you’re real, don’t let me go.”

Sirius tightened his arms, pulling them all closer together as he kissed her through her hair. “Very real. As are you. This dying dream notion is the false thing, little vixen. The love around you is real.”

Remus hesitated a moment and then likewise tightened his hand on her hip, cinched tight his arm around both her and Sirius. “Why do you think we’re not real, Hermione?” He asked quietly, kissing the spot behind her earlobe gently.

She shook her head slightly. “I don’t deserve _this_ . Lovers - too many, too many, but none disgusted with me for it when my own _sodding_ husband couldn’t stand even my _friendships_ with other men - friends, _time_ , and… and _family_ … and this absurd, this fucking _absurd_ legacy, I can’t… the fuck am I going to do with it all? It’s too much, it’s too much, too much of it is good, and I don’t deserve a jot of it!”

Remus nipped at her shoulder as if to chide her. “Yes, you do, though… well, _questions_ later. Let’s…” he sighed, seeming to think a moment. “When you dream, is it usually from a first or a third-person perspective?”

She blinked, thinking. “Third?”

Remus nodded behind her, nuzzling her neck. “And how are you perceiving things now?”

She blinked, checking, double checking. “F-first,” she panted, still shaking.

She felt Remus nod behind her. “Em… can you fly?”

She scowled involuntarily. “I’m a witch.”

Sirius snickered into her scalp and Remus sighed. “Without a broom?”

Hermione twitched, thinking. “Give me a couple weeks to come up with something,” she grumbled. “ _Voldemort_ can, so it must be possible… but I _hate_ flying.”

“Love,” Sirius rumbled, “Do you ever have dreams where you’re between us like this, and we’re all still wearing clothes?”

“Sirius!” Remus growled indignantly.

Sirius’s low, slow laugh reverberated through her ribs. 

Remus shifted testily. “Hermione, if you ever dreamed of being in bed pressed tight against Sirius, would he have such godawful _nappy_ breath?”

Hermione couldn’t help laughing. Sirius, meanwhile, shut his parted lips with a snort of incredulity, unwrapping his arm from around the other two to cast a wandless breath freshening spell - on Remus.

“Don’t worry, Remus, I’ve taken care of the source of _that_ ,” he grumbled, surreptitiously also casting on himself before he let his arm fall back over them both with a swat to Remus’s ass.

“Ow!” Remus yelped, affronted.

Sirius sighed, shifting slightly before rolling his hips against hers, his reaction to their proximity suddenly evident as she gasped and the tremor stilled under the involuntary arch of her spine between them. The arch... which happened to set her grinding down over Remus, who swore under his breath as his hips helplessly shuddered back up against her.

“This is more like what a dream would be like, isn’t it, love?” Sirius nearly purred, yanking them all together in a wave of helplessly pulsing hips.

“Fuck,” she breathed, shuddering and being dragged along despite her evaporating anxieties. 

Remus moaned into her neck, his cock prodding her through their cloths as he ground up hard.

“Mmmm,” Sirius said, watching a moment before he leaned forward, nudging Hermione’s head low to... kiss _Remus_. 

She watched Remus pause… and then reciprocate from under their flexing jaws, watched their heartbeats visibly flutter over their necks, their throats shudder as each ground into her harder, Remus’s hand came up to roughly tweak her erect nipple through her shirt. She heard herself mewling desperately, all thought departing, all tension turning liquid in her limbs.

Remus chased Sirius’s lips as they withdrew, the darker man looking strangely triumphant as he pulled away and, though his eyes remained on Remus's for another moment, bent to kiss Hermione. 

Remus growled and rolled them all over, placing himself on top of the other two and sinking his teeth into the soft skin of Hermione’s neck. 

Hermione moaned, carried along, crushed exquisitely. 

Sirius, however, stilled, his eyes narrowing.

And then he did something she never would have predicted: with a muttered charm, he shot out from under her, tearing Remus off her so fast his teeth scraped the skin of her neck as he flew off the bed and landed hard on the floor. In a second, however, he was on his feet again, and the two men were almost circling each other, squaring off, shoulders tense and stances wide. 

“No,” Sirius growled, never letting himself arc so far that he was not still between Remus and Hermione.

 _“No?”_ Remus hissed incredulously, sounding suddenly cruel. “Isn’t that what you’ve wanted, you lost little puppy? Isn’t that what this has all been about?”

Sirius shook with rage. “I _love_ Hermione. Nothing - absolutely _nothing_ \- between her and me is about you, you self-important prat. And I love _you_ , too, Merlin help me I do, but I _will_ rip your fucking head from your shoulders if you dare so much as play at marking her as a mate, or if you pull out your bullshit werewolf dominance magic over _either_ of us. You _don’t_ fucking get to do that, not ever, not with me and not with her. You want a bitch? Find one out there who will _crawl_ for you. When you’re ready to love an equal and get over your own bullshit, however, you can bloody well _talk_ about it with me - and/or her - _first_ . If you haven’t been clear with her about what scarring her neck would mean, meanwhile, you can be _damned_ sure I’ll be filling in any gaps in her internal encyclopedia.” Sirius shook his head, his shoulders suddenly slumping as if in… disappointment. “ _Shame_ on you, Moony. A woman _none_ of us ever deserved to touch has been sharing herself - mind, body, and soul - with you, and when she needs help and enlists us in providing it, you do _this?_ What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Hermione was sitting upright, listening and watching, her eyes darting to Remus’ face whenever Sirius wasn’t blocking her view. And she watched him… just _sag_. 

And then walk away.

Sirius followed him to the door, for the first time she could remember locking _and warding_ it behind his departing friend. When he saw Hermione standing in the study doorway, watching him anxiously, he shook his head, seizing a bottle of firewhiskey he’d given her from a side table and uncorking it roughly. 

“Do you need me to explain any of that?” he asked, his tone unusually flat, his eyes unusually angry.

Hermione shook her head slowly. “I… don’t think he would actually have -”

“- _you_ didn’t see his eyes, pet,” he interjected, shaking his head and taking a long, slow drink. “He’s got a ways yet to go with whatever remedial werewolfing you’ve put him onto with Charity and whoever she’s got him seeing on the side. For all he was helpful tonight…” he looked up at her, suddenly fearful and sad, “... for all he’s brilliant, and lovely, and warm, please promise me you’ll be _careful._ There’s a section on werewolves in the red book. It should… it should cover anything you may not already know. Just… read it and be on your guard, alright? Remus… he hasn’t… he hasn’t got healthy experience with love. Idiot lost his virginity over a summer he ran off with a pack with some mongrel wolf girl, and other than bopping her furiously for a few months just... He hasn’t had much in the way of relationships with those who don’t break the furniture around the full moon. Just… if _anything_ happened to bind you… Godric, the kicker is _he’d_ probably be even more devastated than _I_ would, when all’s said and done.”

Hermione padded up to him as he started to sob, pulling him into her arms. “I won’t let anything like that happen, Sirius. Thank you for stopping it just now. And… oh, love, it’s alright. Sssssh,” she soothed, pulling him down into a chair and perching on his lap to pull her head down into her embrace. “Sssshhh, everything’s alright. It’s okay. No one got hurt tonight. It’s alright.”

“Why’s he got to be such a ruddy asshole?” he moaned into her shoulder. “Haven’t I loved the wrong people enough? Haven’t enough of the _right_ ones been hurt besides?”

Hermione furrowed her brow, easing the bottle he was jabbing her in the back with away and, after almost just putting it down, taking her own long pull from it. “I… swear to do my utmost not to be a ruddy asshole?”

He laugh-cried into her shoulder, shaking his head. 

And as she finally coaxed him back toward the bed, stripping his sweat-and-tear-soaked clothes and climbing in to hold him, she suspected bleakly that this wasn’t the turn her dreams would take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you all! Please don't kill me! - WtW
> 
> 8/8 update: I will be back. Unexpectedly large bit of face gone with skin cancer surgery. Need good story for the scar, which I can sell as rakish once it stops HURTING so much I can't bloody write. I'm not yet 40, used SPF 15 on my face constantly for last 20 years, and yet. Don't be me. Wear a hat and more SPF. I didn't need my eyebrow stuck arched for 6 months. 
> 
> tl; dr gimme a minute my head hurts then I will write more.


	59. The Past is Not Done with Us Yet

### HEADMASTER’S OFFICE, HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY - DECEMBER 18, 1981

It was a pensive and tired-looking Hermione who wandered quietly into Dumbledore’s office early the following morning, nursing hot cocoa in a large, chipped mug emblazoned with the text “CONGRATS GRAD!” over top of “PARTY LIKE IT’S 1999!” in burgundy letters on neon yellow. There were dark circles under her puffy, sunken eyes and there was even an unusual limpness about her hair, as if it couldn’t muster the energy to be a problem today.

Albus was bent over a heap of parchment with uncharacteristic studiousness, writing quickly with one quill while another bobbed through his ink well and, after brushing excess ink off on the rim, hovering near his hand to wait for him to switch to it so the other could reload. She wanted in a sort of bleary eyed fascination while he went through several quill cycles without looking up. 

Eventually, deciding she wasn’t ( _just_ ) grouchy this morning, she cleared her throat, arching a brow and tapping the watch at her wrist when the headmaster looked up. 

“Oh! A good morning to you, Ms. Granger! By the state I found Remus in last night, I wasn’t expecting to see you today - certainly not so early! What can I do for you?”

Hermione’s eyes twitched narrower at his casual mention of what he clearly knew was a sensitive subject, and in the moment she took to sit across from his desk, she thought. “Right. I suppose you’re going to tell me that there's some new and critically important business for the Wizengamot- or will it be the ICW?”

Albus blinked blankly once before he smiled a little sheepishly. “How astute. Actually, I’m afraid that the Minister of Magic has urgently requested my counsel on a matter of-”

“-oh, come off it.” she grumbled.

Dumbledore affected a momentary attack of polite failure to hear. “I beg pardon?”

Hermione rolled her eyes, slumping sullenly but not without a certain steeliness around the eyes. “Do it later. You know damn well why I’m here.”

Albus looked at her for a long moment. “Professor Granger, I assure you, when the head of the government of my country, which also happens to employ me, sends me an urgent missive about-”

Hermione silently summoned the top scroll from his desk from under his fingers, skimming it and leaving him sputtering mid-sentence. “Well, I _say-”_

Hermione glanced up. “This is about Gringotts contract negotiations.”

He sat stiffly upright. “Yes, and as you know-”

Hermione shook her head. “-and as I _know_ , you will recommend that the Ministry follow the school’s suit and allow Goblins contracting for the Ministry to wield wands with certain tracking charms in place, and the Minister, bless her, will laugh a whole thirty seconds about it before sending you a terse thanks saying that she’s worked something else out, but she’ll sleep on it overnight and at least concede to their request for a small bank branch to exist on site at the Ministry, for convenience, with official liaisons between the Goblins and the Ministry permanently housed on sight in the bargain.”

Dumbledore’s nose twitched very slightly but he didn’t say anything.

Hermione shrugged. “Footnote in the 1984 edition of _A History of Magical Governance in Britain and Ireland_ , Bagshot. One of the boring ones. Yesterday, according to a more interesting footnote, you did five more important things our new colleague later linked by stains from the brownie you had for dessert that you’d managed to put off until dinner. You were supposed to put your Gringotts counsel off, too, writing a brief and reasoned case for your thoughts instead of composing a treatise you know will only further cement your carefully cultivated reputation as a barmy old nutter, which, to be clear, does not now and will not _ever_ work on _me.”_

She sighed, standing and pulling first her heavy winter cloak and then Harry’s invisibility cloak from her beaded bag, efficiently layering them on without bothering to remark on how Dumbledore stilled to see the latter garment. 

When she finished, she looked at him expectantly, standing while he sat, seeming deep in deliberation over whether or not to bother being angry.

Finally, with a sigh, he stood up. “Tell me, Professor, did you have me so well in hand by the time you were taking your OWLs? Or was it until you were in NEWT-level studies?”

Hermione snorted as he summoned his own white, fur-lined cloak, looking as he shrugged it on like Gandalf the White - right down to the intimidating power rolling around him, however aggrieved his face might look. 

“Well, _Professor_ , as you know, this new quirk of mine only came with the utter demolition of my life as I knew it. I rather worshipped you as a student. But I am not so arrogant as to think I could duel you, and would really rather not continue this exercise of plunking our… what? Our cunnings? Our intelligences? ...out onto the desk and measuring whose is bigger. I still respect and believe in you enough to know that a mixture of curiosity and knowing this is what you _should_ do will ultimately kick you into motion, though. I’m just…” She sighed, rubbing her eyes with the back of one invisible forearm for a moment. “I’m tired today, and I don’t want to joke, and I don’t want to posture and spar, or bare your soul _or_ mine to draw out your better angels. So stop stalling and let’s go. Stop giving me sass and I’ll … I’ll take you to see the Resurrection Stone, before the New Year, as long as you promise not even to _try_ to go near it or bring it near you or… whatever.”

He just looked at her, his shoulders dropping a bit. “It was a younger man, Hermione, who wanted that stone.”

She shook her head. “You’re not as over it as you think you are, Albus. Are we going or what?”

❧

She didn’t know half the spells he’d used to breach the wards here undetected, redirect the attention of guards, or cast such a ridiculously effective disillusionment on himself that it rivaled Harry’s invisibility cloak. But it was this stone thing she wanted to interrogate him about first, even as she knelt, white-knuckled, gripping the side of the large, flat rock as it lurched and wove upward. He had assured her it was so thoroughly spelled to deflect interest that invisibility was no longer necessary, and… well, at least she couldn’t see _through_ the blasted thing.

“My goodness, Hermione. You might have mentioned you disliked heights.” Albus said lightly, standing upright and looking bored as their makeshift platform, once a huge black paving stone in a forbidding courtyard, slid up the similarly ebon rock wall of Nurmengard Castle, rapidly changing directions with no apparent regard for passengers who could be dislodged as it darted around windows, gargoyles, and grotesques. 

Hermione glowered up at him. “You’re going to be crying in my arms sniffling for another Shirley Temple later, you great pompous paragon, and we both know it. Can you please stop it with the sparring and let me get back to considering whether or not I’m going to vomit already?”

He sniffed, gazing away from her and off into the distance. “Shan’t. _Can’t._ The distraction is all that’s keeping me calm. Consider, Hermione, the advantages to be gained by my _not_ ceasing to be calm at this moment, would you?”

She shook her head at him and thought a minute, before declaring in a carrying voice, “Socks are the most overrated of all garments. We should all go barefoot or at most wear sandals at all times.”

He drew back in horror, hand leaping unbidden to shield his heart as he turned partially away.

And she smiled, glancing up and suspecting the conversation to come would occupy them with less personal damage for the rest of their ascent. 

❧

“... _not_ to even _mention_ the serious risks of frostbite in the extremities!” he concluded with self-satisfaction. 

Hermione glanced up at him from where she’d been surreptitiously timing his argument with her watch. She had opened her mouth to retort, but closed it again when she saw how near the top they were getting. 

“Albus, I will need your wand now, please.”

He crossed his arms stubbornly, clearly feeling robbed of a tearful concession speech, but then shook his head and handed it over. She tucked it away in the place she’d prepared quickly, then held out her hand.

He blinked in confusion. 

She just looked from him to the hand. “This is where you need to put your own wand - the one you inherited or, I don’t know, got from Ollivander’s. Also any and all spares you might have.”

He pursed his lips and eventually dropped three additional wands on her palm. Which stayed out until a fourth one also appeared.

She shook her head. “ _I_ carry at least _ten.”_

He shrugged. “I find I am a passable caster without them.”

She nodded, dragging herself upright with her knees bent and her feet spread into a wide stance while their juggernaut elevator continued to dodge and weave. “Yes, about that. You’re going to swear to me on the Elder Wand that you will not go on a destructive warpath, whatever we encounter up there.”

He looked… confused. “Hermione, I hardly see why you have such concerns.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have much time - so trust me and bloody well swear it, will you?”

He did so, his eyes narrowed. 

She smiled, giving him a quick hug. “Aw, I knew you could.” She reached up to ruffle the long silver hair under his purple satin hat. “You’re like the mutinous teenage son I hope I never have!”

As he looked down his bent nose at her, the platform dodged quickly left, causing her to stumble back to her knees and seize the side again. “As you say, _mother dearest_. As you say.”

❧

Finally, they arrived at the huge window Harry had described from his vision. Now, as then, there was no glass in the window, and inside, chained to the wall and … in a turn for the worse, wearing nothing but some sort of torn cloth accomplishing the barest requirements of modesty… lay a bruised and bloody Gellert Grindelwald, his mouth lolling open as his eyes slowly swerved around and tried to focus on them.

“Shit,” she swore, darting forward immediately and summoning healing potions from her pockets as Albus, still on the makeshift elevator, went completely pale and _shook,_ light distorting in waves around him _._

“You _swore_ , Albus,” she reminded him over her shoulder as she poured a warming brew and then a Wiggenwald potion down the supine wizard’s throat, elevating his shoulders onto her lap as he gagged to help him swallow. 

He couldn’t weigh more than 7 stone, and he was taller than Albus. His skin was papery under her fingers, which felt entirely too many of his bones. 

Albus, when she darted a glance over her shoulder, had his eyes closed and seemed to be trying to collect himself, his hands tightened into fists at his sides. 

Hermione shook her head and quickly moved to pluck the stranger’s long-fingered hand from one of her heavy cloak’s pockets. She’d stashed Harry’s Hallow before arriving, in a less obvious place - and momentarily thought about her long-held theory that it had been designed for a Peverell _sister_ , not brother, due to its lack of anything even remotely resembling a pocket. And then she saw the focus sharpen in the emaciated man’s eyes as she smacked his wrist lightly. “None of that. Do you want a blanket or don’t you, Herr Grindelwald?”

That was what snapped Albus out of it. In a moment he swept forward, his enormous white cloak already off his shoulders and in his hands as he pulled the body of Gellert Grindelwald, who was gaping in shock at the sight of his erstwhile closest companion and ultimate nemesis, across his own lap and covered him with the thick fur garment, muttering strengthening, warming, healing, and other charms under his breath and blinking furiously. 

Grindelwald reached haltingly up to tweak the silken tassel at the end of the draping point at the tip of Dumbledore’s hat. His voice was hoarse. “Still so _flamboyant_ , Schnuckelschneke.”

A sob escaped Dumbledore’s mouth before he could let out a choked laugh. “At least I channel it into _fashion_ and not ghastly ideological wars.”

Hermione sucked in a breath through her teeth, shocked, but the prisoner just coughed out a tired laugh. “There… there is _that_.”

❧

 _Schnuckelschneke_ , she thought, was something… about a snail. A snake? No, she was pretty sure it was a snail.

Trying to learn German hadn’t taken. She loved the words English had borrowed - _weltschmerz_ , that she knew well. _Schadenfreude_. And she’d had less intimate acquaintance with any number of often lengthy but whimsically _perfect_ compound words. There was this hint of incisive humor and self-deprecation in the language and the way it clustered these little amalgams together, the pictures they painted, that she glanced through a dark window that didn’t open for her easily - and there were so many windows that flew wide and drew their own curtains aside when her mind went knocking that she’d shrugged and moved on to Latin. 

She thought perhaps she should give it another try, maybe in her new _sodding enormous_ library. 

She thought all this as she sat, skin tingling with a warming draught’s effects, with her legs folded and her back to the wall, as far from the two men huddled together talking as she could get while still handing Dumbledore a steady stream of rapid nutrition potions, bone-strengthening draughts, lung-fortifying tonics… all laced, quietly, with a tincture that dampened the strength of the imbiber’s magic. 

_Can’t be too careful,_ she thought, _after all. And honestly, if they haven’t both noticed it’s only because they’re … like_ this _._

A spell that had little to do with magic held sway over Albus and Gellert - speaking and whispering in low tones, occasionally chuckling or reaching out to touch each other’s faces as if they couldn’t stop themselves, couldn’t believe their fingertips would truly find warm skin.

Hermione sighed, looking at the open, guileless look on Grindelwald’s face as he murmured up to Dumbledore, and wondered if reuniting them had been an enormous mistake… at the same time she wondered, watching Dumbledore’s hand stroking his lover's still-half-blonde hair back from his brow, when last he’d been touched with any intent but to hurt or punish him.

The scars… were extensive. Dumbledore had tightly responded to her inquiry that, no, very few of them dated to before his imprisonment.

So she’d handed him a pot of bubotuber-dittany cream for them, too. 

She tried not to notice the gentle, lingering way the Headmaster’s clever fingers smoothed the medicine into the captive’s skin.

When she saw Grindelwald wince and struggle to sit up under his own power, she hesitated a moment, and then summoned a washed set of Remus’s sweats and the socks she’d knitted Albus for Christmas from the tiny, concealed beaded bag, thrusting them forward at him. 

He blinked, as if only just remembering she was there, and glancing from Albus to her as if awaiting something as he hesitantly took the bundle with shaking hands. 

Albus blinked and turned - his back had been to Hermione - before he spoke. “Em, Gellert, this is my friend, Hermione. She’s… she’s Minerva McGonagall’s daughter, and you… _we_... have her to thank for bullying me into coming here today.” He glanced back at Hermione. “Hermione, I’m not certain my… friend, Gellert Grindelwald, needs much introduction to someone with your efficiency at the study of history.”

Grindelwald was examining her with unguarded curiosity as his face pulled through the neck hole of the sweatshirt, which it had taken him a moment to orient himself to. “These are very… warm.” he said, his lips twitching as if they wanted to offer a smile. 

She waved it off, smiling tightly, guardedly. “They’re a relatively recent Muggle innovation. Intended primarily for warmth, comfort, and physical exercise in cooler weather.”

Gellert looked at Albus a moment and then back to her, nodding slowly but not commenting as he picked up the socks. They were magenta with speckles of a variety of other bright colors. He gawked at them a moment before his eyes darted to Dumbledore and then back to her. “These are for my Albus, not me!”

Hermione shrugged as Dumbledore’s blue eyes peered at her with interest. “They were initially. They’re recycled sari silk. They should be warm.” She glanced back at Albus with a slight smirk. “And I’ve more of the yarn.”

Grindelwald, swimming in the sweats despite having gained in the neighborhood of 2 stone under the barrage of restorative potions, stroked the socks in his hand for several seconds, looking at them with a strange welling of emotions in his eyes before he bent to put them on his feet. 

Dumbledore’s eyes were back on Hermione, flickering with inscrutability, until Grindelwald levered himself back up.

And then there was a rushing sound before the air grew dark and close. 

Gellert immediately shrunk in on himself, hugging his knees and trembling as Dumbledore surged to his feet, eyes sparking in rage. _“Here?_ There is no provision for this! This is a travesty and a failure of justice!”

The dementors swirling around the tower circling closer in a cloud of thunderous dread, were unmoved. 

Hermione, meanwhile, was scrambling away from the “window” - more of a missing wall - on her hands and knees, sobbing each breath as tears streamed down her cheeks. 

_Harry, as she’d last seen him,_ her _Harry, sending Kingsley’s law books leaping from their shelf to barrage the Minister with an angry wave of his arm, screaming, red in the face as Aurors pulled him from the room._

Dumbledore hissed under his breath and sucked in a breath of concentration, _wandlessly_ summoning his magnificent phoenix Patronus, smaller and fainter than usual but still formidable as it charged screaming into the Dementors’ midst. “Hermione, my wand, now! _Any_ wand!” he shouted.

But Hermione couldn’t hear, her eyes closed and face turned to the wall she shrank against. 

_Harry, graying at the temples, more creases at the center of his forehead and around his mouth than at the corners of his eyes, dead-eyed, holding some new employee of Borgin and Burke’s at wandpoint until he got a reluctant nod and picked up a small package that somehow oozed threat, wrapped in brown paper and twine._

“Hermione!” Dumbledore pleaded, “Hermione, I _need_ a wand! You have to… you have to concentrate on something that makes you happy! _Fight_ it, Hermione!”

Hermione screamed and shrank back as a rotting fingers passed through the wall above her head, scrambling back crabwise until her back collided with the huddled Grindelwald before she whimpered and shook her head, closing her eyes again as the Phoenix of light madly circled them in smaller and smaller circles and Albus sank to his knees, sweating with focus. 

_Harry, in the Department of Mystery, ragged and too thin, threatening Unspeakables in the room of Time, spit flecking his chin, eyes mad, the still-wrapped object in his off hand while his wand swept toward anyone who moved, witches and wizards cowering against a wall of gears and clocks._

Hermione fell back as, stumbling, Grindelwald uncurled, eyes on Albus fighting for their souls, and pulled himself up - to his knees, and then to his feet. 

Hermione, still tucked in a ball, now on her back, screamed sobbing, watching through distorting tears as Grindelwald pulled Dumbledore to his feet and staggered into a stronger stance before… 

_Harry, lying, eyes open on a cold stone flood, a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth as Luna rushed to him, crying and failing to_ Renervate _him._

 _Harry,_ dead.

She gasped, unable to breath as she shook her head helplessly, barely registering the large, dark form soaring over her alongside the light-spun image of Fawkes. 

Until she blinked…

 _Harry,_ dead.

… and she _saw..._

_Dead._

And it wasn’t enough, not for a Patronus of her own, but it gave her _hope._

With a great snarl, Hermione leapt to her feet, the sword of Gryffindor appearing as a spark in her hand as she rushed at the phalanx of Dementors attempting to press their last attack despite the _two_ Phoenixes, one golden and whole and the other a scared and darkened ember, with only one red eye and gashes where no feathers would grow, _still_ flying, screaming harsh music with the fury and anger of its love. The Dementors could not hold their ring formation under the onslaught of both diving at their ranks, so they were readying a wedge, a charge, its point rushing at the window. 

Hermione leapt in front of the wizards as they collapsed into each other’s arms and braced for the end and swept the sword through their spectral bodies in one great arc, a pivot, then another until she teetered at the edge of their erstwhile elevator - and all of the dark abominations were dust on the wind.

 _“No! Never! No!”_ she screamed at the blackness as the wind snatched it and carried it away, snarling and looking for another target even as hands caught her by the back of her cloak and pulled her back to solid ground.

❧

Albus was shaking her. 

“Hermione, dearest, we must go. I can… I can remediate this, but now, we _cannot_ be found here. Please, give me a wand.”

Something broke through her haze and she saw he’d already retrieved her rather lurid sheath and strapped the sword across her back, and that Grindelwald stood, worried, with his hand on Albus’s shoulder as a clamor sounded outside the cell door - a human clamor, but nonetheless. 

Dazed, she handed him her own wand, pulling it from where she’d concealed it, shrunken, in her hair. 

It only mildly sparked in Dumbledore’s hand before he waved to reinforce the door, then held it to his throat, magically sending his voice, cold with fury, echoing around the valley without deafening those closest to it. “This prison facility has failed a surprise inspection under the ICW’s Conventions for the Fair Treatment of War Criminals. All evidence has been collected and anyone who harms those imprisoned here or confidential informants among the staff while a future course is determined shall be dealt the harshest possible consequences under law. Await further orders and the arrival of emergency medical attention for maltreated prisoners until further official ICW notice.”

Grindelwald blinked, wide eyed. “You…”

Dumbledore shrugged, sweeping the already staggering man into his embrace before he could fall. “Supreme Mugwump, at least until the backlash of this hits.” Albus buried his face between Gellert’s ear and his shoulder, breathing deeply as if bracing himself. 

“Ariana,” the emaciated wizard breathed, eyes closed. “It was my fault, Albus. It was my spell.”

Dumbledore looked up, meeting Grindelwald’s eyes with furious intensity before he pulled him into an equally intense kiss, Hermione blinking in shock before she half-tried to look away. 

As the two men kissed, their hands madly trying to hold them together, in a tumult of decades of loss, the two phoenix Patronuses alighted on the rock outside the cell and dissolved into a swirl of light and dark behind them - but not before Hermione saw the one previously-missing red eye blink open, intact. 

She frowned in thought a moment before looking back, clearing her throat as Albus managed to make a handful of Gellert’s wasted right cheek. 

The wizards pulled apart, panting, and Dumbledore spoke. “It was both of us, Gel. It was always. And if I hadn’t been such an idiot, such a damned fool, so afraid of learning which wand happened to do the deed, I would have _known_ that no assignation of guilt could be clear, and we might have _talked_ . Imagine, _imagine_ , how many wounds borne by this world might have been prevented, if only we had not let ourselves be torn apart, as we were never _made_ to be..” He brushed a tear from Gellert’s eye with his thumb. “We are unforgivable. But we must try to atone.”

The clamor outside door had quieted after Dumbledore’s announcement but was - if slightly more politely - beginning again. 

“Albus,” Hermione said, biting her lip and glancing anxiously down the tower as more guards amassed in the courtyard, pointing up at the now-unconcealed, strange rock. 

Albus shook his head, the men extricating themselves from each other’s arms reluctantly. “I’ll see you soon,” Albus promised Gellert as he handed Hermione back her wand. Then, with a ragged breath, he turned back to her. “Well, Hermione, do you know the trick of Apparating out of Anti-Apparition Wards?”

She drew back, shaking her head. “N-no! Only you can do that, and maybe… well, sorry, your _Liebling_ there and Voldemort!”

He gave a cavalier wave of his hand as he took her arm and steered her out onto the rock alongside her, blowing Grindelwald a kiss. “Nonsense! I’m sure I’ve taught Nicholas, too.”

Hermione scowled. “Look, I’m no Flamel, either, Albus.”

He grinned. “No! You’re Hermione Jean Granger Gryffindor McGonagall, and honestly, I’m not sure you entirely understand that, yet. But not to worry - I’ll teach you, as you’ve still got _my_ wands.”

Gellert smiled apologetically and waved goodbye as he sat back down against the wall and watched with a sort of pained smile, as if he knew _something_ was coming.

Hermione scoffed, fishing for one of his wands in a bag within a pocket within a pocket. “This _hardly_ the time - they’ll get through that at any moment. We won’t have time!”

Albus smiled lightly. “Never to fear - we won’t be here. And there will be plenty of time.”

Hermione sputtered. “What? Where? _When?”_

Albus grinned. “You didn’t think I wasn’t going to return this to the courtyard, did you? On the way down!”

And she barely saw Gellert Grindelwald start to shake his head before she, the absolute _worst_ wizard she had _ever_ known, and the very large rock they’d just been standing on started to fall.


	60. Kids at Christmas

### CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK, SCOTLAND - DECEMBER 18, 1981

“In the _lake?!”_ Sirius repeated incredulously pressing the _Prophet_ down into his lap as he stared at her. 

Hermione winced as she hit _another_ pothole. “Looks yes, in the lake. I didn’t know if we’d be injured when we hit water if I went for _above_ the lake, but knew that _in_ the water our speed would dissipate more quickly. And the squid was kind enough to fish us out, so-”

“-the _squid?!”_ he squealed.

She just sighed. “We’re fine, after all that Pepper Up, and I haven’t knocked his block off, alright?” she scowled, downshifting. “I can’t believe you let me talk you out of charming the suspension better on this monstrosity. What’s wrong with you?”

Sirius picked up the paper again with an arch of an eyebrow, continuing to read a front page article with an image of Dumbledore declaiming furiously at a podium above the fold. “I was _told_ that to do so would be wrong by someone I love and respect, and I did not want to transgress her moral boundaries.”

Hermione groaned. “Well, she’s an idiot. I swear that last one rattled my teeth loose.”

Sirius smirked. “Darling, you always say that when you’re having to do something you find unpleasantly physical out-of-doors, in the air, or having to do with a machine, but I think you’d be down to your gums after any single evening we’ve spent together were you actually so very delicate.”

Hermione just scowled, swerving a bit in an icy patch. “Could have made it four-wheel drive. Given it power steering. Do _not_ listen to me about vehicle improvements in the future.”

Sirius smirked at her. “I rather thought the sidecar changes you okayed went well.”

Her breath hissed through her (quite superlatively intact) teeth, her cheeks barely pinking. “Did you?”

He shrugged, turning the page. “I knocked on your door later, didn’t I?”

She blinked out of a half second’s reverie, feeling herself lose focus. “Em. I… I thought you were going to read that article to me. Why have you not, precisely, you… _incubus_ , you?”

He chortled. “There’s a summoning for one in the book, you know.”

She rolled her eyes without removing her attention from the road. “Yes, I use it every night after everyone thinks I’m asleep because I’m _so lacking_ in sexual gratification at present. Read the thing.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m already more than half through it, but I’ll summarize. It would _seem_ that our Supreme Mugwump, acting under rarely-invoked executive authority under the counsel of a network of confidential informants, went on a _prison-breaking spree_ yesterday. Through it, he was able to identify a total of 58 prisoners’ rights violations widely perpetrated at a total of 17 of the 19 wizarding prisons he infiltrated around the world, and is calling for immediate changes of leadership and reform. Also, apparently he learned that Denmark and Sweden are actually doing quite well at treating their prisoners humanely and even reducing rates of recidivism through apprenticeship programs in magical craftsmanship, care of magical creatures, and whatnot. He wasn’t wild about the daily Lutefisk-for-lunch thing, but admitted it didn’t equate to some of the heinous shit he’d seen in Brazil, for example.” He shrugged. “And… popular opinion and/or press spin seem to be with him, so maybe it was otherwise going to be a slow news day or maybe the time’s right to show a little more mercy. People are very very _tired_ , still, after Voldemort - and even though most of the world was insulated from his little revolt, all the leaders were on tenterhooks about it, worried it would catch and spread.”

Hermione nodded grimly, plowing through a patch of snow with her fingers crossed. “That… all seems promising.” She shook her head. “Godric knows it’ll be easier if he or some other Order member with their wits about them has power in the ICW while we continue to try and deal with our friend Tom.”

Sirius folded the newspaper, looking across the long bench seat at her. “Hermione, dove, exactly what _is_ next with that?”

Hermione frowned, pressing a cassette the rest of the way into the tape deck. “I’m working on it. I… I think I need to talk to Charity soon, too - get my head straight on some things before… well. Those Dementors absolutely threw me, Sirius - thank you for not pressing me on it much, but I was… surprised. I don’t know that I could even cope with a damned _Boggart_ right now. And the path forward is… becoming less clear.” She sighed. “But in the interest of my not panicking while driving a rear wheel drive station waggon through the Scottish winter to pick up three children, d’you think maybe I can wow you with this mixtape I made you for the moment?” 

Sirius looked at her with a little moue of concern. “You know that… that if things have changed so much you can’t be the schemer in chief anymore, that isn’t some sort of failing, right?”

She shook her head. “Not now.” She gritted her teeth through a hard right . “D’you know Joan Jett at all?”

“Rings a … distant bell?” He squinted starting to rock his shoulders to the opening verse. She smiled, watching him from the corner of her eye and feeling her fear melt from the forefront of her mind as his chrome-studded belt bounced with his hips to the beat.

And she found herself singing along come the first chorus. “‘ _Do you wanna touch? Do you wanna touch?_ ’”

\--He was singing the _“YEAH!”_ bit by the second repetition, and eyeing her with increasing interest when she sang _“Where?”_ as if scandalized and _“There?!”_ trailing the fingers of her right hand down her from her navel with a little wink.

She squeaked when she heard the click of his safety belt, head half-involuntarily turning into his kiss as he surged toward her. 

He swallowed her shrieks of outrage as she watched the road out of the corner of one eye, swerving a bit. Then his lips finally let up… only for his hand to snake down the front of her jeans.

“Pull over,” he rumbled in her ear as he reached her, her wetness spreading hot on his fingertips.

She let out a long, ragged exhalation. “We’ll … mmmph… Sirius, we’ll be _late_...”

He bit her earlobe, growling. “Pull. _Over.”_

On the second word, he’d thrust an expertly crooked finger into her, leaving her gasping as he started to move it in and out of her, grinding the heel of his hand into her clit rhythmically.

There was, it turned out, a convenient overlook. She even let him charm The Blackhearts’ cover of “Crimson and Clover” into looping for the next… oh, _however_ long.

❧

### GRANTOWN-ON-SPEY, SCOTLAND

Hermione’s dad loped out into the driveway to greet them, waving and smiling broadly. “You made it! We were worried, what with the weather and the state of some of the park roads!”

Sirius popped out of the passenger door grinning while Hermione checked she, well, still had _knees_ and hadn’t left her knickers hanging from the mirror. 

“Well, it _was_ quite slick out there, ended up thrust into a few tight places, but I’d say we came through alright, eh, Vixen?”

Hermione emerged on coltishly unsteady legs, fumbling behind her for the ubiquitous bag. “Em. Yeah. So sorry we’re late, Henry!”

Her dad shrugged, smile fading a little as he pointed at the windshield. “Might need to get your defrost checked, though. Doesn’t seem to be keeping the condensation from occluding a bit of your view, there!”

Sirius smirked at her sidewise as he walked past her father to the waiting kids, clapping the slightly older man on the back affectionately. Hermione, meanwhile, wandered into a hug. “Sirius insists on, em, dancing in his seat if I use the tape deck. I blame his irrational exertion.”

Her dad chuckled, ruffling her hair fondly. “You wouldn’t have him any other way. You do this thing Rose does too - just uncannily similar, really - where you smirk even while you complain. S’how her mother knew she loved me,” he said, a little puffed up with pride.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “For… beating her at Scrabble, right?”

Henry looked surprised and gratified. “She told you that?” 

She smirked. “Must have come up at some point, yeah.” She shook her head, patting the wrapped box in her hands, knowing it contained one of their soon-to-be favorite games from its first year in production. “I think she’ll get her revenge, yet, though.”

His eyes narrowed at the characteristic noise of rattling game pieces. “Uh oh. What evil are you bringing into my house?” he winked.

“Just a little trivial diversion - I’m not _that_ kind of witch,” she laughed, knocking into his hip with hers as she walked toward the porch, where Sirius was already literally buried in toddlers. “C’mon, I’ve got to steal the babies away back to my gingerbread cottage before midnight!”

Henry laughed, shaking his head. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re the one who ends up being shoved in the oven.”

❧

It was dark when they left to return to the Castle, and they were _very_ full of a Garnier Holiday dinner - goose _and_ ham, red currant jelly, french haricots, buttery potatoes, and a truly decadent trifle that made Hermione glad she had carried sober up potions - and that her parents didn’t approve of giving too much sugar to the kids in this day of more blasé norms where alcohol and kids were concerned. 

Dud… _Henley_ , Hermione (the younger), and Harry were asleep within minutes. As they slept, all across the backseat hung their little clasped hands - Hermione in the middle holding on to each of her newly-minted brothers. Sirius sighed contentedly, looking back at them before resting his hand over Hermione’s on the gear shift. “I love them. Glad we didn’t keep them, but wish we had too, if that makes any sense.”

She snorted, looking sidewise at him. They _had_ pulled over to make a few modifications, this time, and the drive back was already proving significantly more comfortable than the trip there had been. So… she pushed the purple button she’d charmed to automatically take over piloting and looked at him there with her as they skimmed above the treetops and the clouds, smiling in the starlight. 

And then she mulled a little. “D’you want kids, Sirius?” she asked.

He batted his eyelashes at her. “Back for more already, are we?”

She kicked his shin, leaving him dissolving in muffled profanity and laughter. And then, before he could stop, chuckling, she unbelted herself and pulled herself over and up into his lap, pressing her forehead to his. “Be … _serious_ with an _e_ for me, would you please?”

He sighed, tugging her a little closer by her hips and looking up into her grave, dark eyes. “In general? I come and go - I do quite well for myself as the godfather or the silly uncle, after all. But… now there’s you…” He shook his head slowly. “I can think of no greater joy or honor than connecting my life to yours in that way - of doing that… very intimate alchemy together. Someday.” He chewed his lip a moment before grinning. “And they’d be hell on wheels, too. Give us a run for our money every damn day, I’d wager.”

She looked down at him, kissing his nose. “I love you. And I think… I think I want that. Too. With you.”

He looked at her with an unguardedly sincere earnestness for a long moment, and then flipped her on her back across the seat again, climbing up over her with a rangy grace. “Good. We’re having ten, and they’ll all be named Gerald. Let’s start practicing for Ger I’s conception, shall we? Have to get it right.”

She squeaked, quickly stifled by his hand pressing down over her mouth as he ground his clothed hips down into her. “Uh uh uh,” he crooned, waggling a finger scoldingly, “ _mustn’t_ wake the children.”

And then, his hand still locked over her mouth, his lips started trailing kisses _down_. 

❧

When Hermione rolled her eyes back sometime later, arching off the seat for the third time in about ten minutes, she was feeling much more fond of station wagons and would’ve consented to _twenty_ kids if some could be Geraldines… so it was a damn good thing he’d managed to gag her with her own shirt before she could promise anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this is now epic length. I do not know how this happened.


	61. Given and Taken

###  HOGSMEADE - DECEMBER 22, 1981

Hermione felt the pulsing of her skin just so, before she had a chance to moan. “Hermione… please,  _ Salazar _ ,  _ please  _ don’t stop…”

Hermione slightly tightened the pinch of her finger and thumb where they hemmed in Narcissa’s clit, the pads of her fingertips centered on the tiny, hard bumps on either side as she lapped across. Hermione’s tongue was already sore at the root from exertion - but the little arches and ripples of shivers across her stomach, the musk and salt and wetness, the intoxicating sounds she made… there, that little squeal, that childlike hammering of her fists down at her sides along the covers, like a little  _ tantrum _ (“I want it now,” she imagined Narcissa crying, “I want it now now now!”) and soon… soon… 

_ Soon _ , she  _ got  _ it.

“ _ Hermione..!!” _ Narcissa cried with a full body shudder, her back arching like a sprung trap as Hermione slipped the finger below her entrance into her, stroking mercilessly at the ridged bit of skin on her front inner wall, pressing there as she started to intersperse licks with hard little sucks outside. 

Narcissa’s gasped at the escalation, back bent until Hermione needed to turn her face down to keep up with the cant of her hips. The blonde arched so extremely that the top of her body was now supported by the crown of her head while her arms flailed, her mouth keening inarticulately in joy that sounded almost like pain. 

Hermione couldn’t help the smug smile that bent her lips around her lover’s center as she sucked, blinking her eyes shut as Narcissa gushed, splashing Hermione’s face, in her ecstasy.

“Hermione,” Narcissa sobbed, her thighs trembling, as her back finally returned to the bed a minute later, the brunette still swirling her clit in her mouth. “Gods below and above, Hermione,” she breathed, shuddering and reaching shakily down to try to pull the other woman up. 

Hermione, content as a cream-fed cat, suffered herself to be dragged up the perfect alabaster peaks and valleys of Narcissa’s torso, though she paused to nip at the curve of her belly, the swell of one breast before her lips were pulled back to the other woman’s, mess and all. 

❧

“Mercy,” Hermione gasped, perhaps two hours later. “Narcissa,  _ Godric _ , you’ll destroy me, or you’ll never get me from your bed - and - and - mmmph,” Hermione shuddered, her hips rolling involuntarily as the other woman’s slender hand rolled its knuckles inside her. “Never mind!” she squeaked, eyes rolling around the now-twilit bedroom as her hips twitched and rolled. “Never mind, you can…  _ fuck…  _ do what… do what you want… I guess…”

She gave a little half-cry of vexation  _ and _ relief when the hand pulled reluctantly out of her, pruney fingers displaying themselves for her inspection a moment later as Narcissa pulled herself up alongside her, flopping with one thigh draped over her hips before resting her head on Hermione’s shoulders and setting about sucking her own fingers clean between words. “You… had that coming.”

Hermione shivered, burying her nose in blonde silk and inhaling deeply the perfume there. “At least six times, I did, yes.” Her eyes drifted closed as she cinched her arms around Narcissa, who insinuated herself to fit their every soft curve to mesh together as she pressed close. 

A little while later, one of Hermione’s eyes popped open to the sight of her lover sucking a lazy love bite into the swell of her right breast. Grey eyes flicked to hers wickedly as she watched with a shake of her head. “Cissa, we’ve got to clean up. We’re expected for supper - Frank and Alice and Sirius have had the kids  _ all day _ , I do rather want to spend some time with them all, hear about the snowmen they built earlier.”

Narcissa’s eyes flashed and she felt a little warning of teeth that made her shiver.

Hermione hissed breath in through her teeth. “We… we can bathe together?”

Narcissa sucked hard, enormous grey eyes feathered beneath absurd dark lashes sulking contemplatively. And then, with a pop, she pulled her swollen red lips free, leaving a remarkably dark, small bruise in her wake. “I suppose I’ll allow that,” she murmured, letting her lips drag over Hermione’s skin as she formed the words.

Hermione smiled down at her, uncertain if she was disappointed or relieved. 

“I’m bringing the harness,” the pureblood said, comically enough,  _ primly _ , getting up and stepping over to rummage through a low drawer, leaving herself very openly displayed to Hermione as she bend from the waist, her legs straight and so very, very long. 

Hermione moaned, not even having realized she’d been halfway through scrambling over to accept the unspoken invitation before willing herself to flop back down on her back. “Fine, you utter glutton.” She glanced over, watching a single drop of wetness roll down the back of Narcissa’s thigh. “But I’ve something else I’d been thinking you might like to try.”

Narcissa, with a little clank and the sounds of things slipping from her hands, glanced back over her shoulder with an arched brow. “Do you, then?”

Hermione smirked, sitting up. 

❧

For some reason, Narcissa always snickered coming through the Floo naked, like she was getting away with something. Hermione had asked her about it the prior week. 

“Imagine,” the youngest Black daughter had said, “if we were to cough when pronouncing our destination, or trip on the grate. Imagine bursting out nude into, I don’t know, the middle of a shop in Diagon Alley, or some elderly society marm’s parlor during high tea.”

Hermione, with a slight lift of her eyebrow, had nodded thoughtfully and taken note, making certain to find a few semi-public places to fuck Narcissa in the near future. The first experiment in this, in the alley behind the Three Broomsticks, had been… quite successful. The second, in a private box at the Royal Opera, had risked Narcissa’s debut as a very talented soprano, for all her speaking voice was throaty and low. But it had really been  _ incognita  _ in a crowded tube car, pressed front to front and piled in like overcrowded sardines, that had stuck to Hermione’s memory. Narcissa had glared daggers at her as she’d insinuated her hands low and inched the hem of the blonde’s muggle-style pleated shirt up, finally easing her hand down the front of her silky knickers and diligently applying herself to her lover’s pleasure with nimble fingers. Hermione hadn’t dared kiss her as her face softened, despite the fact she easily could have - to raise such a spectacle at this time in Muggle London would have invited further scrutiny the pair could not withstand as Narcissa’s tight cunt welcomed Hermione’s fingers. Still, the blonde’s lips had parted and she’d begun to color so prettily as she panted, all pale but for red lips, red cheeks, glassy, blown eyes. A rather attractive man in a rather expensive suit, a few bodies over in the press, seemed to suspect what was happening and caught Hermione’s eye. Hermione considered panicking - but as Narcissa’s eyes rolled back, the clench of her beginning to flutter around Hermione’s thrusting digits, Hermione had opted simply to wink instead. When Narcissa gave an involuntary little cry, Hermione made a point of apologizing for stepping on her foot (which she hadn’t) a little more loudly than strictly necessary.

The man had been so set on pursuing them later that she’d had to drag Narcissa at a jog behind an information booth, later, before Side-Alonging her away.

Now, though… some privacy, hot water, and a new toy seemed just the thing, although… 

“Hermione, what is this glorious scheme of yours?” Narcissa purred, voice low as she straightened from putting a bag of her things down on the foot of Hermione’s bed. “And have you remembered to lock the door this time?”

Hermione checked. The time Severus had burst in on them, naked and lapping at each other in the middle of her bed, he’d seemed to stall in place, gaping, until Hermione had cleared her throat and shooed him away. Which… well, she’d consider  _ that _ later.

Hermione sighed as she walked back into the bedroom. “How is it, you, that I feel we have a decade of erotic history despite only having first fucked properly not two weeks ago yet?”

Narcissa smirked, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “I’m beautiful, memorable, and…  _ amenable  _ to all manner of unspeakable things, it seems, when properly smitten.”

Hermione felt her heart begin to speed  _ again _ as she watched the blond turn to the bathroom, fiddling with the taps to achieve her preferred water temperature.  _ Smitten, _ she thought, a little giddy. The pliable, eager young woman she had come to know was, in so many ways, entirely unlike the older matriarch she’d known in her time. Honestly, most of the time, Hermione could have sworn that she herself was the older of two. There were so many things Narcissa’s sheltered existence had kept her from, first under the thumb of her family and then under the dominion of her lord husband. For all she was wise and authoritative as a habitual front, which was not without substance, when Narcissa was with Hermione, she displayed a sort of eager innocence and curiosity that just undid her Muggleborn lover. There was a strange rush in the… trust? Submission?  _ Something _ . Hermione wasn’t sure  _ what  _ it was, but having such a creature in her hands - literally and figuratively - was heady and intense and very, very dear to her. 

Hermione clucked, though, coming out of her reverie and up behind Narcissa to still her hand. She’d made some modifications, and there was now a large shower independent of the large tub. Narcissa looked over her shoulder, curious. Hermione smiled and kissed her, letting her body press around Narcissa’s from behind. “Do you want me to surprise you, or to show you first, darling?”

Narcissa considered, letting herself press back into Hermione as she stood. “Surprise me.”

Hermione nodded into the crook of her neck, kissing there before giving her highborn lover’s  _ fucking perfect  _ ass a little swat, drawing a gasp of indignation even as the blonde readily stepped into the shower, turning on  _ those _ taps. 

Hermione, smiling as the steam started to obscure Narcissa’s silhouette through the glass, wandered back out to the bedroom to retrieve a new acquisition from a discreet drawer. She spelled it first clean - as a precaution, as it had not yet been used - and then  _ slick _ . 

And then, smiling, she stepped through the doorway back into the bathroom, her surprise behind her back as she closed the door behind her, locking  _ it _ , too, for good measure. 

“Close your eyes, Cissa,” she murmured, seeing the blonde still in anticipation when she heard, her pale hands pressed to the glass enclosing the shower streaking down and falling to her sides as she waited under the warm spray. 

Hermione opened the door and stepped in behind her, putting her offering down on the bench along the wall before she embraced the other woman, sharing in her warmth and wetness and kneading at her shoulders as she kissed along her neck. “Good girl,” she crooned, coming around to the front of her and kissing both her closed eyes. “Tell me, Cissa, what are you in the mood for?”

Cissa shivered - it pained  _ and _ aroused Hermione to see how she thrilled to be  _ asked _ what she wanted, when they were intimate. She worried that such questions were altogether new to her.

Narcissa huddled into Hermione’s arms, fitting her head below the brunette’s chin. “Be rough with me, Hermione. Obliterate any shadow of sensation that anyone has ever touched my body but you. Make it so I can’t walk straight tomorrow, make it so I can’t be still without the memory of you overwhelming me. Make me yours completely.”

Hermione frowned, kissing the blonde’s forehead. “Are you sure?”

Narcissa nodded adamantly, still tucked to Hermione’s chest. 

“Rough enough to hurt you?” Hermione asked.

“Oh, yes,  _ please _ ,” came the breathy response.

Hermione wondered if she was the one to give such a charge, but … understood. Being thoroughly taken over by the hunger, the need, the intensity of a lover, their madness to consume you obliterating all gentleness, was a heady thing. And  _ Merlin _ , how she wanted this woman. She just… for some reason there was a discordant bent to the tone of what Narcissa wanted, when Hermione considered herself giving it. And then, somehow,  _ Sirius  _ that first night, sauntering into her room and  _ destroying  _ her flickered through her mind. 

But… well. Hermione had, she suspected, the means to do what Narcissa wanted. 

So she pushed the beautiful, wet woman who’d asked this of her to her hands and knees, and as she walked around her, watching the water splash off her perfect skin, considered the sounds of her eager little whines and wondered if she could enjoy them as much as Narcissa wanted her to. 

❧

She sat a little gingerly after pulling Narcissa’s chair out for her - but she didn’t think anyone else had particularly noticed how Narcissa herself had winced on sitting, or the look of absolute adoration she’d flashed up at Hermione just then, either.

The entire horde of tiny ones was chasing Sirius around the house on little feet, of course. She’d been… well. Cautious about talking to Hermione the Younger, as they had weirdly started calling her, but she was trying to inflict some sort of strategy on the others, true to form. Hermione laughed behind her hand as the little girl huffed and stomped off to plot an ambush herself, true to form, when no one else seemed interested in stopping running to strategize with her. Not even little Ron, who would one day be better at such things, was interested yet.

She watched herself hover anxiously inside a doorway and consider sticking her foot out and then, finally, find a broom - just a cleaning one, it seemed - and hold it ready, pressed to the wall and listening. 

Then Sirius burst into the kitchen, graciously dodging Alice with a little bow as she stood, laughing, with a savory pie of some sort balanced on each hand. As he loped down the hall, Harry was tripping and waddling after him with Draco close behind - clearly neither concerned about taking a tumble at their tender age - and Ron and Neville behind them. 

“ _ Ron _ doesn’t have to behave,” George observed to Fred, sitting beside their mother - who was nursing Ginny at the table while they waited to start dinner, but spared them a glare. 

“ _ Ron _ is little, and has not once made all the stairs in the house disappear, you two,” Molly said.

Fred, with all the precociousness of Percy, who was reading at the table, said “That’s accidental magic, Mum! That means we can’t help it!”

Molly looked at him skeptically. “And what about turning every dish at dinner into pudding the other night? Could you have helped that?”

Charlie chortled, buttering a bread roll. “I really hope not. That was  _ wicked _ , you two.”

Molly  _ tsked  _ but she was smiling as she handed Ginny to Arthur and righted her blouse. Sirius, meanwhile, was leading his pursuers in circuits of the kitchen island. Hermione the Elder laughed as he looked up at her and almost failed to dodge in time when he met her eye and grinned. 

“You really are in love with him, aren’t you?” Narcissa said softly.

Hermione blinked, smiling as she turned to the woman she’d been ravenously enjoying all day - only for her smile to fall a bit at the wistful, distant look in her eyes. Hermione blinked, picking up Cissa’s hand under the table. “Cissa,” she said softly, knowing she wouldn’t be heard above the din as Sirius tripped spectacularly across the room, “What about today could possibly make you think that’s something for you to be sad about?”

Narcissa looked down to their joined hands, Hermione’s thumb smoothing circuits over her palm. “I…” She sighed. “You are absolutely magnificent. But I know you humored me today. I don’t think you want that to be the defining tenor of a relationship you’re in, not forever. And… love, I’m… I’m humoring you. About,” she flushed, “about  _ sharing.  _ I want all of you -  _ need _ all of… of someone who holds my heart, and I want them to need nothing but mine. And… unless I miss my mark… you can’t give me that.”

Hermione blinked at her, eyes stinging a little. She didn’t know what to say but was afraid her heartbreak would be all too plain on her face. 

Narcissa finally looked up from their hands, and then  _ did _ smile again, smoothing an errant curl back behind Hermione’s ear. “I’m not finished with you. I just know… I know this thing we have, it isn’t going to be what ultimately satisfies me,  _ or _ you. I know that. And I think you do, too, but aren’t facing it. And I think I’d rather we do…  _ this…  _ with our eyes open to that, so that I don’t let myself be fooled into… into thinking you could be mine forever.”

Narcissa’s voice quavered a bit at the end, her fingers tightening on Hermione’s hand. 

Before Hermione could reply, much less consider what to say, Sirius fell into the seat on her other side, grinning, even as he held his handkerchief up to his slightly bloody nose. “The Younger there  _ tripped _ me!” he said, like it was the most fantastic thing to have ever happened. “She’s going to be an absolute terror!”

Hermione turned to him, smiling - but from the immediate refocusing of his eyes, a tinge of her sadness was showing. “I could have told you that,” she said anyway, trying to telegraph that it wasn’t at all his fault. 

Though, as she polled her own heart, she wondered a little if, in part, it might be - not that she could ever complain. She would never give up Sirius for anyone else, now. She knew that - and it was only fair for Narcissa to know and plan around that, too.

And yet, as Frank announced that dinner was served and platters were either carried or hovered to the table, Narcissa plopped her chin onto Hermione’s shoulder, embracing her from behind and tutting at her cousin. “The Elder is  _ mine _ , today, you ne’er-do-well. Goodness knows you’ll get her back, but for now, make nice with that woebegone angel who’s been making eyes at the both of you all night or eat your food. I assure you I won’t let you charm her out from under me just yet.”

Hermione looked aside, blushing, in time to catch Remus pretending, from where he sat between Bill and Frank, that he hadn’t been doing exactly what Narcissa alleged. And to notice that Severus, across the table, had his inscrutable expression in place - but that his eyes flickered between her and Narcissa before catching on hers. 

Hermione sighed, tugging her gaze away before tilting her head back to give Narcissa a lingering peck on the lips. She then righted herself in her chair and set about filling her plate. Narcissa left a hand on her thigh, but Sirius, mutinous rascal that he was, had crossed his foot behind hers, weaving their ankles together - just to touch her despite the prohibition. 

As Henley and Neville started to tell an animated story about a crup, Hermione realized that if any other lover had done the ankle thing, she’d have kicked them away - and wondered, then, what would unfold next. 


	62. Lost and Found

###  POTTERSWOOD HOUSE, CORNWALL - DECEMBER 24, 1981

She leaned against Sirius in the doorway, the light from the hall filtering softly into the room beyond.

“Fuck having kids. I  _ neeeeeeveeeeeer _ thought we’d get them all to sleep,” she groaned. 

Very, very  _ quietly  _ groaned.

He chuckled (also quietly), ducking to kiss the top of her head. “Next time, we aren’t doing the cute one-huge-room-with-all-the-beds thing, love. Next time,” he waggled a finger, “we’ll be  _ prepared _ . Smarter. Experienced and savvy. We will know better than to keep them together like this and set off the chain reaction that is asking for one more glass of water.”

“One more book,” she murmured, shivering.

“One more sodding  _ snuggle _ ,” he agreed.

They stood there another minute, watching Ron and Harry and The Younger and Henley and Draco and Neville, all lined up, asleep. Ron had managed to fold his knees under him and stick his orange-pajama’d hindquarters up in the air, and Draco had his hands clasped over his chest like a decorous vampire. Harry was upside down and Neville was sort of draped across his bed sideways. Henley was snoring loudly.

Hermione sighed, taking in the room with an expansive gesture. “Do you see this? Do you  _ see _ what I sodding had to put up with, growing up?” 

The Younger was tucked in properly and fast asleep, head on her pillow, with just the smallest corner of a book sticking out from under her pillow.

Sirius glanced down at The Elder, smoothing her hair back from her face with a faraway look. 

She looked up at him. “What?”

He just looked at her,  _ at  _ her but still far away, the barest upward tick to one corner of his mouth.

She flushed a little, blinking. “What? Have I got something on my face?”

He sighed and shook his head. “Just... everything.”

He picked her up, kissing her at the same time as he walked back toward the fire.

❧

They were naked on the couch in front of the hearth sometime later, under a huge, soft throw that Euphemia Potter had apparently woven from cashmere. Hermione was still lying on top of Sirius, and they were helping each other navigate the ludicrous angles to drink from the same large glass of red wine without spilling, as neither wanted to sit up. 

“Happy Christmas, Sirius,” Hermione said, reaching over to place the glass on the uncarpeted stretch of floor again.

“Happy Christmas, love,” Sirius replied, arranging the blanket around her shoulders as she snuggled down against his bare chest. “Thank you for… Merlin. The longest and best not even two months of my life?”

She snickered. “I’ll drink to that, but maybe later.”

He glanced down at her with mischievous interest. “Later, eh? What’s on for sooner, then?”

She smirked, beginning to drag herself up his torso until-

“Can… can I see my old mummy and daddy?”

She squeaked in alarm and bolted upright, gathering the blanket about herself as Sirius did the same.

Harry was standing on the far side of the couch, little footy pajamas and all, looking sleep-rumpled and sad.

The two adults glanced at each other quickly, paling, before springing into motion.

Sirius spelled their clothes back on even as Hermione scrambled off of him and walked around the couch, sinking to her knees in front of her erstwhile best friend and holding out her arms to him. “May I hug you, Harry?”

Harry thought about it a moment, then shook his head. Hermione let her arms fall back to her sides, worry writ large across her features. “Did you say… do you miss your old mummy and daddy?”

Harry rubbed his eye with a small fist, frowning, before he spoke. “Yes.” He sighed.

Hermione blinked. “Em… well, Harry… I…wish you could, darling, but they’re gone. They never, ever wanted to leave you - they fought to stay - but sometimes it just happens.” She sighed, watching him blink through quiet tears. “Harry, I miss my old mummy and daddy, too. Very much. But, well…  _ most  _ people only ever get one mummy and daddy. What happened to you isn’t something everyone … can relate to. I…” she gnawed on the inside of her cheek, struggling. “I sort of have a new mummy now, I guess. And an old man I give a lot of flack too, but I don’t think… I don’t think it’s  _ ever  _ the same, even if, in a way, we’re lucky enough to have good, new, caring people become our family. And… and  _ Sirius _ misses your old mummy and daddy so much, too.  _ And _ Remus, and your Uncle Frank and Auntie Alice. Your old mummy and daddy, to them, were like… like Henley and Neville and the lot are to you. And I… I wanted you to have the  _ best _ life, the  _ most _ love. I,” she sniffled, realizing she’d been crying, “I wanted you to have the best love and the most, so… so I gave  _ my  _ old mummy and daddy to you. I even … I gave my old  _ me _ to you. It… darling, it was the best thing I knew how to do.”

Harry looked at her gravely for a moment before belatedly accepting her offer of a hug, putting his little arms around her neck while Sirius, behind her, came down on his knees and embraced them both. 

“Still miss them,” Harry finally said, sniffling himself. 

“I know, Harry. I know. I am so,  _ so _ sorry I couldn’t fix it for you so you’d never lose them at all.”

Hermione pulled back, looking at his face through swimming eyes. “It’s… actually, Harry, it’s going to sound funny, but I had an old  _ Harry _ , too.”

He looked at her like she was doing one of those things adults do, where they ham-handedly make up stories to explain shit that can’t be explained. 

She shook her head rapidly. “I swear, really. He was my age, and he… he was the most important person in the world to me.”

Sirius’s hands twitched tighter on her shoulders and he leaned in to kiss the top of her head.

“Where’d he go?” asked small Harry.

Hermione laughed through her tears, though she couldn’t have said why. “Magic did this… this  _ thing  _ I didn’t expect or want or ask for, or even know could happen, and I came here. I lost…  _ everyone  _ I loved, but I also met some new people who I love too, starting with you. And… partly, but not  _ just  _ because… you  _ are _ that Harry, and he was you.”

Harry smiled a little. 

Hermione shook her head, picking him up as she stood. “You know what? My  _ old  _ Harry and I had a tradition that might make us all feel a little better. I… I want you to have a mummy and daddy who love you, Harry, but it’s okay to miss your old mummy and daddy. They loved you too - they loved you so, so much, their love changed our whole world, and that’s… that something even  _ love _ doesn’t do just every day. Do you think that if Hilly and Peapot stay here with with your… with your  _ new  _ sister and brother, and your friends, that we might be able to take a little trip?”

❧

###  ST. IGNOTUS CEMETERY, GODRIC’S HOLLOW

Their breath clouded in front of them on the cold, crisp December night. Distantly, she heard caroling again, from St. Ignotus. 

Sirius was walking behind her a step, looking around, as she crunched through the snow with a well-bundled-up Harry in arms. 

Harry furrowed his little brow. “Where?”

Hermione glanced at him. “Do you remember this place, Harry?”

He looked around with a serious face he would keep as long as she knew him… and eventually nodded, then pointed ahead of them. 

Hermione nodded. “Yes. We’re… we’re going to say hello, and you can say whatever you need to say to your old mummy and daddy, and I’m going to show you the present I make them every Christmas, alright?”

A few minutes later they were there, and, after shuffling her feet a minute and taking a breath, she set Harry on his booted feet. “Harry, this is a place you can come to remember your first mummy, Lily, and your first daddy, James. Their names are written on this stone, here - and in a few years, you’ll be able to read it. When you’re older, part of their name will become yours again, too. They’re not…  _ here _ . But I think they can probably hear you, if you need to talk to them. And… and we can do this, too.”

Pulling out her wand, Hermione crouched beside Harry and murmured a soft  _ Orchideous _ , framing the details of a wreath of white roses in her mind as she swept her wand in a slow arc to conjure it. Harry looked back at her and smiled. “Mummy… old mummy… made those lots.” He looked at her wand curiously. “Teach me?”

Hermione blinked, glancing back at Sirius, who was crying as copiously as one can without being loud about it, half behind his handkerchief. She smiled up at him sympathetically before looking back to Harry. “Em, I’d love to, when you’re a little bigger, alright? We’ll get you a wand of your own first, too.” 

Harry nodded and then looked at the stone, his expression of steeling himself and understanding more than he’d been told about the sadness of a thing already apparently in his lexicon as he leaned his cheek against it and started murmuring quietly, presumably talking… to his dead parents.

Hermione stood and stepped backwards until she was alongside Sirius, who slung an arm around her and kissed her cheek. She sighed.

“We weren’t the first to come. Look,” he said, gesturing at the other offerings around the stone. There were two garlands draped over it, one of magnolia leaves and lemons and another of pine, ivy, and mistletoe. There was a bouquet of holly and … heh, of  _ wolfsbane _ , and another of blue roses and white lilies. 

For a moment, somehow, it made her so  _ angry _ . It was so unequal to the loss, so paltry as a tribute. 

But what  _ wouldn’t _ be?

So she watched the little boy lean against the stone and speak, and her eyes drifted over the footprints in the snow, of all those who had come to pay their respects today or at least recently. 

“Circe, love… when did you start to…?” 

Hermione looked up at Sirius, blinking tears from her eyes. “It should have been our final year at Hogwarts. Ron had… left us. Harry and I were on the run, trying to put the pieces together that Dumbledore had left us to defeat Voldemort, and after so long just finding  _ nothing _ , we came here. We didn’t even know, until we arrived, that it was Christmas. Then…” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Then Voldemort killed Batilda and used her as a trap to come for Harry, and I barely got us out, and we had to share a  _ wand _ …” She sighed. “I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever been so low, other than…” She blinked, her eyes suddenly focusing on a particular set of prints among the snow. “The hell would…”, she trailed off

“Love, you … you got him out of a trap that Voldemort set, which is so… and you’re beating yourself up over a wand, but… Hermione?”

She didn’t process his words - she’d already stepped off to follow the prints without explaining herself, even when Sirius, staying beside Harry, called after her. 

“Dammit… I must be losing my… Out here, in Winter? I never did find the mother… Godric, I never looked, what if I…  _ shit…  _ and they were all half…”

When she nearly collided with the ruins of an old stone shed covered in vines, she stopped, shaking her head at herself. “It’s nothing, Hermione, just probably from the rectory, or some family in town…”

“Mrrow?” inquired a hoarse, aggrieved-sounding voice.

Hermione stilled. She couldn’t even breath as she turned her gaze down to see two surly,  _ wonderful _ yellow eyes. 

She fell to her knees, holding out her hands, which were shaking. 

Slowly, a tufted orange foot emerged from the shrubbery, followed by a half-starved, squish-faced fuzzball, matted and burred and badly scratched in places, mangy skin hanging on prominent bones. 

The tears started coming uncontrollably as her knees went out from under her, the kitten watching, unimpressed, as she tried to fold them tailor-fashion in the snow. 

“Crooks,” she rasped, “It’s me, Hermione. It’s  _ your  _ witch.”

The kitten gazed at her a moment longer before it scrambled up the front of her cloak, ignoring her arms… and curled around her neck under her scarf before it immediately fell asleep. 

She blinked down, unable to believe until her hands came back to support the boney little body and she bawled and bawled, the little creature not stirring at all as she tore her throat crying. 


	63. O Come O Come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: 
> 
> Christmas  
> (Consensual, fairly light) BDSM

### HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY - DECEMBER 25, 1981

Christmas Morning had been all riotous joy. The kids had _loved_ the practice bludger set Sirius had conspired with Rolanda and Ismay to make them. The bludger, a soft if heavy ball in this case, only targeted those wearing little badges that indicated their willingness to play and avoided fragile objects - and the bats the kids all got passed entirely through everything but the ball. Neville still managed to effectively punch Henley in the lip - which Neville was horrified by but Henley laughingly told everyone about after a quick healing spell, pleased with his adventure. 

Hermione had given herself beautifully illustrated editions of the complete Beatrix Potter, _The Complete Tales of Winnie-The-Pooh_ , The Chronicles of Narnia, _The Tales of Beedle the Bard,_ and … well, maybe just 10-12 more. She’d ultimately settled on getting the same for Draco. Neville, and Percy, figuring sharing would happen among siblings, along with some non-book toys and trinkets for others.. She’d also gotten Ron, Draco, and Neville copies of a beautiful Quidditch pop-up book, which she assured Harry and Henley they could see whenever they came to visit their friends and cousins. Argus and Arthur had gotten all the kids a variety of fascinating Muggle toys built on to demonstrate the six simple machines. Madam _Pince_ (AKA Eileen Prince) had giggled with joy to see the mischievous potions Severus had made the kids - things that turned their hair a variety of ever-changing colors, or made bubbles blow out of their ears when they sang. And Remus had carved and painted each a beautiful rocking horse - or rather, Sphinx (The Younger), Hungarian Horntail (Draco), Broom (Ron), … and so on down the line. It had been enough to bring Hermione the Elder over to his side and rest her hand on his shoulder, their gazes exchanging words unsaid, for a long moment. It was the first time they’d touched since the incident after she first went to her _other_ castle.

Albus, meanwhile who had surprised himself by attaining record highs of popularity by appealing directly to the public for prison reform, was an unending font of Wizarding Christmas crackers, the Sorting Hat had been let out to sing carols and was already muttering house predictions between firm rounds of _shushing_ from the faculty, and generally there was a deluge of gifts and good spirits all around. 

Adults wouldn’t be exchanging presents until later in smaller gatherings, thanks to the patent chaos of the small children and the few students who were still around, even the dourest of whom had started giving hippogriff-back rides and reading books aloud to the little ones in the spirit of things.

Where she’d be hosting dessert and after-dinner drinks for the adults of the Order later, to her great anxiety. 

Meanwhile, as Eileen still believed Hermione and Severus to be engaged, luncheon would be in his quarters. Hermione was looking forward to it; she’d been _missing_ him. It felt as if all their recent time together had been stolen moments between larger dramas, or nights when they were as interested in sleep as making love. And he had remained, since the incident in November, rather reserved and reticent with her - and less communicative about it than she’d wish for, because… she knew him. And there was no chance whatsoever there wasn’t something underneath it, coming to a boil. 

❧

Hermione tittered as Artemis, looking supremely put out about it but for some reason doing it anyway, fastidiously groomed Crookshanks’ extremely bedraggled tail fluff. 

Eileen grinned into her tea, shaking her head. “I can’t believe they’re siblings. Apart from those _eyes_ , they’re so very different! Were they not both just the same age, and both clearly part Kneazle, why, I’d never have thought it.”

Crooks batted at his sister in warning after she got a bit too aggressive with one of his mats. Hermione _tsked_ at them. “Now, none of that! You’ve a chance to develop a cordial relationship with each other, you two. If you won’t, we won’t have any more of these little visits.”

Both cats regarded her balefully before the allogrooming resumed, Artemis washing Crookshanks’ ears while he took a few desultory swipes at his left front foot. 

Eileen chortled. “Now _that_ would be something. But I don’t see why not, really. I’ll ask Silvanus and Hagrid when I return the prodigal grandkit to their care.”

Hermione pushed down a grin, carefully looking only at her tea as she asked. “And… how _are_ things with the venerable Professor Kettleburn?”

Eileen’s eyes widened, her cheeks running rapidly toward scarlet as she glanced around the corner to make sure Severus wasn’t already back from resolving some sort of student dispute in the Slytherin Common Room. “Oh, Hermione,” she sighed, shivering before she let out a little squeal that resolved in an impish grin. “He’s _wonderful_ . And… truth be told… so is … so is _Argus.”_ She sipped her tea giddily. 

Hermione affected shock even though, well, she _knew_. She liked to think she would have picked it up even without Dobby’s zeal toward reporting any strange goings on in the castle, but as it was, she knew that Eileen had been about as busy as she had been, lately, if rather more secretive about it. 

“And,” Hermione asked, a brow raised, “Do you think either or both might factor heavily in your future? Just trying to determine if wedding bells might sound, or -”

“-Oh, Rowena’s ruffles, hush, you! I’m delighted to tie a man to my bedposts, mind, but not to my fate - perhaps not _ever_ again. I married rashly when I was little more than a child… the same age as _poor_ little Harry’s parents, bless him. I had no idea what future I had signed up for - for myself, or for Severus. I only wish… I _wish_ I could go back to inject my younger self with the courage to leave before it hurt him so - Hermione, he told me every day, _every_ _day_ , how no one else could ever want me, how _worthless_ I was - and the worst of it wasn’t that he thought that, but that he made _me_ think so. When it turns out that there are men out there who would delight, even _now_ , when I am rather well past my prime, to do _anything_ to please me.” She smiled softly. “Life’s too short to believe yourself unable to attain happiness. I don’t know anyone much worth talking to who’s had it always, mind, but if you’ve been made to believe you can’t regain it, well, look long and hard at what or who persuaded you of that and try to get it out of your life. I don’t think there’s ever a too late, not anymore. Which reminds me,” she said, standing with a wink, “that I am expected soon at Silvanus’s.” 

Hermione soon, smiling as she saw the hem of a black robe sway out of view in the doorway. “Well, happy Christmas to you, too, Eileen. Much … em… gaiety and joy may it bring you!” She enfolded the other woman in a tight hug, which was enthusiastically returned.

Severus chose then to make his presence known, if one can be said to make one’s presence known by silently stepping into a room, saying nothing, and standing in the shadows until whatever conversation underway has concluded. “Mother,” he said.

“Heavens, Severus!” Eileen gasped, jumping and pressing a hand over her heard. “One of these days I really _will_ put a bell on you! You scared me half to death, you did!”

He smiled slightly. “Nonsense. You’ll outlive us all, I’ve no doubt of it. Must you leave us so soon?”

She swatted him lightly on his wrist, shaking her head at him. “As if you haven’t wanted to spend some time alone with this lovely young woman all day. You be _good_ to her, Severus. Any man alive would be mad not to fall at her feet.” She surged onto her toes and pulled him down for a tight hug around his neck, which he returned with an unusual lack of self-consciousness. “Mind, a fair few women would drop at yours, too. Enjoy yourselves, dears!”

She cackled at the faint flush she’d gotten out of her son before she gathered the kittens and swept out the door. 

Then, they were alone. When he looked at her, one brow raised, Hermione felt… unusually shy, in a sort of warm, pleasant way. 

Then, with a flick of her wand, she spelled the door shut and locked. His eyes darkened but his lips pressed together with uncertainty and hesitation. 

She shrugged, letting him see it. She was _done_ with his hesitation. “I have every intention of comprehensively giving myself to you for Christmas. I prefer to do that in private, if you don’t object.”

His eyes flickered and the placket of his pants twitched even as he swept his hands behind himself. She narrowed her eyes and stepped closed to him. “Talk to me, Severus.”

“Hermione,” he said neutrally, glancing down at her with his face thoroughly guarded. 

She sulked. “Not like that. Where are you, in there? What do I have to do to tempt you out to me again?”

His gaze faltered, falling to his feet. “Hermione, I… if I… _transgressed_ , when it came to you, I could never forgive myself. I know that I’ve learned a great deal, but so much has happened to you, and so many of my own darker desires have been illuminated to me… I want things,” he sighed, gathering himself, “I _want_ things, Hermione, that are _wrong.”_

Hermione regarded him levelly. “May I guess?”

He scoffed, shaking his head. “I certainly hope-”

She cut him off. “You want to hurt me.” It was a statement, not a question.

He stilled. “Yesss,” he hissed, soft and dangerous.

She nodded. “You want to make me so ragged with pain and pleasure I’ll do absolutely anything for you. You want… to bring me to my knees, make me willing to do _anything_ to please you, make me put myself completely and utterly in your power - not because you wish me ill, but because it so intoxicates you to think you could make me willingly surrender to you.”

His eyes glittered, dark and warning, but he said nothing.

“But you know that hurting a woman is wrong, and you never, ever, ever want me to feel powerless again. You never, ever, ever want me harmed by you, by acts of love, and it maddens you that the acts you crave are violent, or involve taking away my will.”

His eyes fluttered closed, but as she stepped slowly around him, he did not move.

“Severus,” she said slowly, considering her words. “I want you to consider my position with respect to ‘ _dark desires.’_ I have… always had a great deal of _responsibility_. When it hasn’t been given me, I’ve taken it upon myself.”

His eyes opened again, curious. 

“I have, for far, far too much of my life, lived on the edge of very real peril - a state you also know far too well. My coming of age was peppered with near brushes with death. Unlike you, though, who have so often felt subject to the world's cruel whims and therefore powerless… I've struggled with the anxiety that, unless I could figure out how to fix _everything_ , everyone I loved had everything to lose. With every death, every injury, my grief has been adulterated by my absurd conviction I could have, _should_ have prevented it. Neither of us is right and both of us are guilty of misestimating our own importance, but… one's viscera are hard to convince. I have sometimes, wracked with guilt and shame, wanted to be _punished_ unto absolution. Wanted there to be a higher power to defer to, one who would touch me with a firm hand. _Strike_ me with a firm hand… render me believing of my utter powerlessness, just for a moment, if only to give me the peace to _breathe_.”

His brow furrowed. She continued to step around him. 

_“_ Clarity and consent are necessary if you'll go down this road with me,” she said, coming to a stop in front of him and catching his gaze with hers. “But… did you not think that you might communicate your desires to me and get my consent to fuck me, hurt me, _rule_ me the way you've wanted to, when that is what we both need?”

He sucked in a breath, blinking, his lips already starting to form excuses, but she lifted a finger to cross them. “Please, think about what I’ve said before you reflexively reply? I’d like to let you unwrap your presents, but we need to be clear on this first.” 

He stared at her - not, she knew, prying into her thoughts, but to whet his appetite, reassure him, she let slip a feeling - her anticipation, her experience (however meager), her arousal, her curiosity, and her willingness to submit to him.

He shuddered, eyes dropping and then flying up to hers again, his breath coming faster. “You let someone… _Salazar_ . You _enjoyed it._ You enjoyed being…” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I… alright, Hermione. I will _attempt_ this, since you believe may work for our… mutual benefit.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

He nodded graciously, then folded his arms, straightening and looking at her down his patrician nose. “You spoke of presents?”

She smirked. “Yes, yes I did.”

“I find myself quite curious about them, in light of this rather intriguing conversation.”

She grinned. “Alright. The first will require something of you, too, though you can come up with it on the spot without preparation. To enable more… _vigorous_ loveplay, in case you’d like a game in which I might, in the spirit of things, say the word _no_ , I’ve a safe word. That word is Vetinari.”

“-Veterinary?” he asked, quizzical.

She shook her head. “Vet-in-ARR-eee,” she repeated, enunciating clearly. “In this context, it’s nonsensical - from a story, really - but I can’t imagine any reason I’d want to say it sincerely in the context of our time together. If I say that word, though, it means that what we’re doing must stop immediately. Do you understand?”

He nodded slowly. “I suppose.”

She nodded, pleased. “Good. Now, if for any reason I can’t breathe, or if my mouth is … _occupied_ … rather than using that word to indicate my wish for things to stop, I can tap you with a hand, or if those are occupied as well, blink at you three times - twice quickly, once slow. You can use the same signal to me, if in need of it. It is your responsibility to make certain one of the two nonverbal options remains absolutely open to me at all times when I cannot speak. Here, like this.” She tapped her palm over his heart for two eighth notes, a quarter rest, then a whole note, mirroring the rhythm with her eyes. He watched closely before his hand came up to cover hers, pressing it to his chest. 

“I… understand, however… I had intended, perhaps, to slowly, gently…” He trailed off, glancing to the door to the bedroom and then back to her eyes. “I truly do yearn to demonstrate my love, not just to make you the vehicle through which I exorcise my… unfortunately considerable demons. You mustn’t believe that I do not enjoy the sweetness we have stirred to life together.”

She nodded quickly, but looked strained, as if what she were saying was very important to her. “I, em, appreciate your intent. But in resolving to lock up your darker desires, you've… well, closed yourself off to me, Severus, and I … I _miss_ you. I _want_ to be a conduit through which you can find peace, through which can gain release and revelation. I want you to think - to communicate - to be in control - but to control your own release of these needs you have until you no longer fear your passions overtaking you outside of a prescribed context. Which means I will, among other things, need a safe word from you, too. If I dig at something you need me to leave alone, even if only with words, you need to use that word.”

He looked at her, somewhat concerned and thoughtful, for a long moment before he finally shrugged. “Apricots.”

“Apricots?” She raised a brow. “You’re sure you never want to say, oh, ‘darling, your cunt dribbles down my chin like a ripe apricot, replete with sugary juices, and-’”

He shuddered. “I would never do the sublime seat of your sensual glory any such disservice as to compare it to so vile a fruit.”

She blinked, nonplussed. “Alright, he doesn’t like apricots, then. Noted!”

He smirked, drawing a little closer. “Are we, perhaps, nearing the part of this dissertation where I may kiss you?”

She smirked back. “Not quite. Presents, still. Plural.”

He sighed, taking a step back. “Is belaboring anticipation an apricot-worthy offense, Hermione?”

She wagged her finger at him, trying not to smile. “No joking about safe words. As I was saying, though…” 

She turned to the side, raising her arms and looking from the large bow holding her robes tied at her waist to his eyes. “Unwrap me?”

His breath hissed through his teeth as he raised his long, pale hands to tug, slowly, at the sash to undo the bow - waiting until the loop had almost disappeared into the knot before flicking his wrist down quickly, slipping it outright.

She smiled as the cloth - clearly prepared by some charm to make it melt away at the sleeves, fluttered down from her body, leaving her clad only in a pair of red-and-white striped stockings, knit of fine, soft fiber and clinging to the curves of her legs up to barely an inch below the crux of her - where, at the top, they were ringed in some manner of fluff. It was reminiscent of white rabbit fur, he thought as he helplessly reached out to touch, but longer.

She danced back from him, spinning slowly as she slipped from his fingers, letting him take in the sight of her - candy-striped legs, bare inch of glistening inner thigh, perfect feminine contours, and all - topped with a wicked smile. “You’re not done yet,” she said, holding out a cloth-of-silver bag to him. Eyes still roaming over her body, unable to determine if he liked or hated the high, high socks but itching to thoroughly investigate before reaching a verdict, he fumbled with the drawstrings until he opened the bag. Inside, he found a neatly coiled length of…

“What _is_ this?” he asked, drawing it out and looking at her. It appeared to be a long, luxuriantly thick emerald satin ribbon, each side edged in a thick braided rope of soft emerald silk, but it was … _heavy_ , and wound more like a length of rope than a bit of frippery or garland. 

She shrugged, looking and smiling a little shyly. “It’s my festive way of telling you you’re allowed to tie me up - to your bed, or as some do in Japan, or as you will.”

His eyes went wide, glancing from her to it, and not, somehow, imagining past hardships… but rather teasing the luxuriant thing over her skin as he kissed her, restraining her from stopping him if he wanted to tickle her, restraining her from reciprocating and just making her let him lap from her chalice until she could hardly bear it - and beyond. It was so… extravagant, so decadent, so frankly silly a rope that it seemed another thing entirely than the foul instruments of torture and taking he had previously experienced.

When he came back from his reverie, she was holding out _yet another_ parcel - and then snatching it away as he reached for it. “This is for later. But I want you to know it’s here. I’ll tell you when you might wish to open it.”

He nodded, curiosity piqued though his waning patience and his swollen cock ached for progress. This was… not how he had determined he should act in order to behave himself for her protection, but he had to admit it had a certain allure. 

She nodded, glancing around a little nervously before she reached behind her and pulled something out of what _must_ have been another of those damnable undetectably extended pockets she so loved inside her salacious socks. It was long and narrow, taking a moment to produce, which despite the racing of her heart - he could _see_ the twitch of its beat at her neck - she drew out with maddening, hypnotizing anticipation, until…

“You…” he blinked down at the exquisite object, then back to her. _This_ needed less explanation.

She nodded, biting at her lower lip. “Yes, sir. Please, sir.”

He cocked his head questioningly. 

She instantly affected an expression of eagerness to please. “Professor, please do not be offended if I honor your position of authority by referring to you with the respect that is only your due. I wish only to please you, and to indicate in my every capitulation just how desperate I am to submit myself to whatever course you feel is appropriate - be it reward, hard study, or even punishment.”

 _Dear Merlin, she’ll be the death of me,_ he thought in a moment of detached clarity before a red haze of lust descended on him and he strode over to her, seizing her chin and squeezing until her lips pursed as if to kiss him, her avid eyes fixed to his. 

_Fuck_.

He glanced from her eyes, her full lips, to the scarlet leather riding crop in his hand. 

And then… he started to smile.

“Ms. Granger,” he said, drawing himself up to his unstooped height. “I am afraid that you have a grueling afternoon ahead if you intend to sooth my ire. You may start,” he declared, loosening his cravat, “by kneeling on the chest at the end of the bed and spreading your hands to grasp the posts at the footboard, if you can reach them. Then, I wish you to tell me of every dirty, naughty, depraved thing you have considered I might do to you on receipt of your… comely gifts.”

❧

She lay so prettily arranged for him, quaking with fear and desire until her teeth chattered. “Mmmmph… I… have imagined you fucking me with your favorite silver stirring spoon, s-s-sir, b-both the handle an-and the b-b-bowl. Aaaand… to pump me with the large pestle from behind and with your fist from before.”

 _Thwack._ Another lovely red stripe across her trembling backside to complement the pattern of those damned stockings. “And?”

“Mmm… I have wanted, sir, for you to take my cunt, sir, while Remus took my ass and Sirius took his, sir. A-a-a-nd… to have you fuck me and kiss Narcissa while she rode my face.”

 _Well,_ he thought, concealing a shudder as he delivered two new, livid stripes.

“I… have… I have fondly recalled u-undressing you, Professor, layer after layer, while touching myself under my desk. I have dreamt of thoroughly searching your wardrobe for any errant spot of color and rubbing myself over any aberration in your self-expression until I came.”

_Smack._

“Y- _you_ , bringing me to climax with only the caresses of your nose.”

_Thwack, crack._

“I have i-imagined you stopping at my table in class, s-sir, and quietly complimenting my brewing before bending me over the lab table and r-rutting into me in front of the entire class while c-calming explaining the next essay assignment. S-so much I once… when you weren’t h-here, I snuck into your classroom and fucked myself with my fingers bent over like that, s-s-sir!”

_Thwack!_

“A-a-and,” she gasped, glancing at him over her shoulder against his explicit order and so earned another fast smack, “A-a-a-and I have imagined y-you d-doing just this, sir. A-and…”

She trailed off and he canted his head, curious. “Continue,” he instructed sternly.

“I have imagined s-slipping you Veritaserum, sir, and asking you to n-narrate your own thoughts and … and _fantasies_ while you f-f-f-fucked me.”

He didn’t give her another lash for this, instead striding up behind her and thrusting two fingers into her without preamble, pumping them in and out of her sopping channel as she whimpered and gasped. “Why, Ms. Granger,” he purred, knowing from the flickering of the muscles within her how affected she was by his voice, “You need only ever _ask_ , now we have reached this… understanding.”

He withdrew his fingers and dealt her swollen nether-lips an open-handed slap, reveling in her breathy cry and the way the muscles of her back rippled as she struggled against the lovely green ribbon, which secured her hands spread wide and tied to his bedposts. 

Then, ghosting his fingertips down her side from underarm to hip, he drew another gasp from her, tickling her, delighting in how she twitched away from him while still curling around his touch. 

“My dear Ms. Granger, I have considered tying your hands to the tops of these posts and your ankles to the bottoms, spreading every delicious inch of you to my perusal, and bringing you to climax with my cock, my hands, and my tongue repeatedly, without cease, over and over again, until you beg me to stop - and then still continuing until you are so overcome that you fall unconscious, sobbing, under my tender ministrations.”

She shuddered, her lovely ass straining, upturned, as if searching for him. 

He bent over her, pressing his torso along her back and his prodigious erection to her quivering cunt, though he was still clothed but for his outer robes and cravat - and then he spoke softly into her ear. “I have considered, in my darker fantasies, never suffering you to leave this bed. Considered affixing to your very skin - perhaps _here,”_ he said, firmly grasping the curve of her right cheek just before it met her thigh, “a brand of my very own, that all others might know you are _mine_ , one you might feel with every step, every time you sit…”

He stood, cognizant of her exhalation as the pressure of his body suddenly left her, “... but I have decided it better to renew the ache you feel in doing those things frequently, through such coital exertions as might _hammer home_ the extent of my desire to always be as present to you as your very _skin.”_

She muffled a sob into his coverlet, straining to lift her hips to him in offering. Which reminded him…

“I have also, ever since you handed me this delicious little device, longed to do… this!”

With a muttered charm for accuracy and a long swing, he brought the flat, looped flag at the terminus of the crop down with a ringing slap on her clit, following it quickly with a series of quick, sharp smacks to the same delicate bundle of nerves such that, before her back could unbend from her initial shock, she cried out in climax, sobbing his given name.

Then, lightly, he tapped her one more time, letting the leather linger. “ _Good_ girl,” he rumbled before lowering his lips to her to lap the pain away. 

❧

She dazedly flopped through a second, gentle orgasm under the soft inducement of his lips and tongue, the slow but lingering crescendo of it contrasting sharply with the brutal storm and nearly choked her on the last. 

She hadn’t known her body could do _that_. 

After he eased her down with tender sucks and strokes, he paused behind her, and she felt a weary smile pull at her lips before he could speak.

“Ms. Granger. You have…adulterated yourself. Must you take the festivities quite so far?”

She attempted to shrug, but her arms were pulled quite tightly to her sides. “You may wish to open the final parcel now, Professor,” she murmured. 

She felt his heat pulling away from her, then heard the paper tear. Then, she waited for him to read the label. “Really?” he asked, a note of genuine curiosity in his voice. 

She nodded. “Peppermint is known to enhance athletic performance and endurance, sir, and to enhance the sensitivity of certain erogenous zones.”

She felt him pace behind her through little things - air currents, the distortion of ambient sound. “So… you wish to prolong our time together like this, then?”

She nodded eagerly, fighting down a smirk. “Oh, _yes_ sir, and to maximize its efficacy. Please, sir, I would like every opportunity to show you just how sincerely and completely devoted I am to pleasing you in _every_ way.”

He stopped. “Do I detect, Ms. Granger, a note of _sass_ in your voice?”

She tried to remind herself of how he’d put her past the verge of tears so many times in the last hour, sink into the lingering burn of the lashes he’d dealt her cheeks, but she couldn’t banish the image of him standing there behind her, sweating and scowling, his arms crossed, which… at some point had become delightful to her. “Emm… perhaps, sir! I’m very sorry, only you’re so exceptionally delicious in your ire.”

“Hmmph,” she heard him say. And then, her hands fell loose, the knots slipping from her wrists. Moments later, she felt him lift her roughly by her rib cage and place her on the cold stone floor - still pushing her down to her knees, but on a cushion he’d placed there to comfort her. 

When she looked up at him, she realized that at some point he’d divested himself of his frock coat and vest. He’d also doffed his cufflinks, which he’d had to put aside to roll the white french cuffs of his dress shirt up to his elbows. He’d also, for the first time she’d seen, found some scrap of leather to tie back his hair at the nape of his neck, making his face more sharply angular, almost sinister, and also more reminiscent, somehow, of the dark hero of some period romance. He had also loosened the first three buttons of his shirt. He had not wiped away the dripping evidence of his recent exertions on her behalf, which wetted him from his sultry lips down to his chest, blending there with beads of sweat that were working to make the white linen transparent. 

He held the pot of peppermint potion she’d made him in one hand as he stepped closer, then set it down to, slowly, unbuckle his belt and undo the first button of his fly. He looked down at her eyes gazing up at his and seemed to consider before slowly pulling the long, black leather strap from its loops and weighing it in his hands. 

“I wonder, Ms. Granger, just how eager to please me your sassy little mouth really is.”

He quickly wrapped the belt around her neck twice, holding onto it at both sides under her ears with his fingers inside the loop before quickly freeing one hand to loose his throbbing erection. Then, he dropped a sizable dollop of the peppermint concoction on his flushed glans with a hiss. 

She licked her lips, looking at the clear, aromatic gel melting and sliding down his length, before looking back up to his dark, heavy-lidded eyes. 

“I’m going to fuck your mouth, now, Ms. Granger. You will spread this brew of yours around my cock with those saucy lips and relish my every thrust with that sharp, quick tongue. Your throat will swallow down my every whim and, unless you cannot continue, you will treasure every moment I choose to ram every inch of me into this font of obstreperous cheek you so boldly carry in the middle of your face. Do you understand?” he asked, looping his fingers back into his wrapped belt.

She was so terrified. She was _so wet._

She nodded, her gaze darting down to his considerable implement before she heard him _tsk_ . “Your eyes, Ms. Granger, shall remain on _mine.”_

Her knees could have gone right out from under her _then_. 

❧

At first, he let her lead, letting his knuckles caress the sides of her neck to ensure she never forgot where this was going. He wanted her, after all, to have every opportunity to opt out.

( _That is_ why _I’m doing this, is it not?,_ he wondered)

Delicately, with her pink tongue, she spread the dollop of potion around and along him, breathing deeply as it did indeed prickle some greater sensitivity to life. 

He let her swirl her tongue about his tip, tease the slit of his opening, let her smile tentatively up at him with her eyes…

And then, firmly grasping the belt to hold her there, he thrust into her, pausing only slightly at the aperture of her throat before pushing through it, her wide eyes terrified and yet blown with lust as her lips kissed the root of his shaft. 

He let her stay there a moment, to drive home the intention of this exercise, to give her an opportunity to tap out.

And yet, even as her eyes teared, as she struggled to breathe around his considerable girth, she _swallowed_ around him.

And then, the red haze intensifying, he let his twitching hips fly.

She blinked, eyes rolling in shock. He watched her and something in him wept, and something in him _roared._ She panicked, but deliberately twined her wrists together behind her back and let him pull her up and down the full length of him, fucking her sweet, tight throat. 

After a minute, he thrust more shallowly, watching her gasp for breath as the tears continued to run from the corners of her eyes, which batted widely, unceasingly up at his. 

He couldn’t stand it. The barrage began again. And she kept taking it, watching him even as her eyes unfocused and started to cross, until he pulled out, letting her gasp in a few breaths before she, still looking at him, eagerly parted her lips for him again and blinked up at him yearningly. 

He felt her gaze just as exquisitely as her writhing tongue, and began to plough her harder, longer, faster, again.

Her knees slipped, but she righted them under herself. Her eyes unfocused, went half-lidded, but with every blink, she managed still to meet his gaze before sinking again into a sort of … distant, untouchable state. He saw her euphoria in the pricked up corners of her distended lips. With a groan, he dropped the belt and buried his fingers in her hair, fucking her in earnest, alert for her signal should it come, but letting his passion reign. 

Until, buried deep, he felt himself explode into her, sobbing in ecstasy as he felt her swallow around first one jet of his seed, then the next, coming so hard he felt he could be scouring the far wall. “ _Fuck_ , Hermione! _Hermione!”_

❧

He came _forever_. 

She’d never known he could - that _any man_ could, for so long. She spared a moment, between coughing breaths, to be a tinge jealous. 

But when he finally flopped, flacid and wet from her lips’ embrace, she shuddered with a sense of love and awe and… vindication. She wasn’t sure, going into this, that _either_ of them was certain they could do this without shying away, demurring, pedaling back. And yet an act that, had it been described to her outside the heat of the moment, she would have thought it impossible she could enjoy (and doubtful she could _endure)_ had left her with such a sense of euphoria and clarity of purpose. She had drawn the reckless abandon from her reluctant Severus, who so feared his own wants - and that warmed her from the center of her chest out. 

❧

He rubbed a white string of his ejaculate from her swollen lower lip with his thumb, his heart stuttering at the adoring, open gaze she kept on him as, on a whim, he swirled the viscous liquid over her lips, like a balm. 

Her soft pink tongue darted out and, slowly, retraced his path, licking up his semen before pulling back into her mouth only for her to swallow… with every evidence of relish. 

“Excellent work, Ms. Granger. You may get that NEWT after all, though it pains me to admit it,” he murmured softly.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, her voice hoarse. “How else may I assure you of my dedication?”

❧

After that, he’d led her into the classroom, bent her over a student work table, fisted her cunt while he pounded into her ass with the large pestle.

With the door to the hall _open_ and an order not to make a sound.

After _that,_ he’d banished the remaining Slytherins from their quarters to go hunt for dittany in the snow (and on _Christmas_ )… then restrained her, spread eagle with sticking charms affixing her wrists and ankles to the enormous window into the black lake, then fucked her so slowly and gently she wept and begged, then answered her pleas for _more_ so explosively she wept and _prayed_.

❧

Only after another bath of Dittany and Murtlap - this one indescribably tender and awash in gentle kisses, did he finally take her to his bed, crawling atop her still-damp body and hitching her legs around him before he pushed into her again.

“Mmm… thank you, Professor,” she murmured, stretching into his strokes.

“An honor, and a privilege. Only… call me my _name_ , now, brat,” he said.

“Severus,” she tongued, drawing out the syllables as he kneaded her thighs, coaxing them wider.

“Hermione,” he incanted, deep and soft, the spell it cast bending her body more open to him.

He smirked, insinuating an arm under the small of her back and pulling her firmly against him. “You have, Hermione, a very pretty voice. But do not mistake it for as powerful over me as mine is, over you.”

She shuddered. “Tell me what else you’d like to do to me with it, then, Severus,” she whispered, writhing beneath him to provide a counterpoint to his thrusts.

He sighed, helplessly picking up speed as he tried to think of anything that could make him even happier than he was, now, making gentle amends through this congress. “I want to see how many times I can make you come with that crop in a row,” he breathed into her ear, “and mix a potion for everlasting love in the cauldron of your cunt to share with you through wet, long kisses. I want to fly with you to dizzying heights and fuck you furiously as, together, we fall to earth. I want to impregnate you ten thousand times, if only to experience fucking you, heavy with my child. I want to bind you so that every time you squirm, that damnable green ribbon abraids all your pleasure centers until, struggling, you throw yourself over the brink before my eyes. I want… want to watch you fuck Narcissa, maybe even share you with Remus, but keep the fucking dog at bay. Although… I want them all, _all_ of them who covet _this,”_ he said, sliding two fingers into her alongside himself with some difficulty and her soft whimpers, “to watch how I can make you utterly dissolve into a nebula of pulsating nerves bent only on slaking my… every… thirst…” 

He groaned as she arched under him, crying out in climax and pulsing arrestingly about him even as he doggedly thrust on. “I want to run you to ground in the woods at night. I want to suspend your hips, utterly still, and watch you try to thrash and cry as I fill your every erotic aperture with crystal stirring rods until you can take no more, then twist them all inside you. I want to pull you unawares into every one of this castle's six hundred-odd hall closets and pound and pluck and suck you to the brink of completion before pushing you out again, your knickers still in my grasp. I want to reach into you through your sacred center and push my hand up through you until I may squeeze your heart in my hand, Hermione. I want to spank you red for asking me incisive, stupid, _brilliant_ fucking questions. I want to restore you to your maiden state and wickedly deflower you in your dormitory bed. I want to wind my hand through your hair to angle your face to mine through a thousand shattering orgasms. I … I cannot have so many of the things that populate my fantasies, but every time, now, that I know to what depths you will willingly sink to with me, every time an fancy flits through my head while we couple like this, I will, in a way, realize them all. Your heat liquid and tight around me, your lips parted to pant. Your fingers scrabbling, clawing ruts in my back.”

He sighed, kissing her sweating brow as he sped ahead, feeling the moment approach. “It’s all a stripping of pretense and a holy surrender, Hermione, and each time I plant my staff inside you and make you writhe, everything… everything,” he groaned, clenching his jaw as he started to lose control and rut into her with rough abandon, “ _everything_ … is… _mine.”_


	64. Ye Merry Mages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to have been away so long. Trying to muster some authorial wherewithal again, and thankful for readers, old and new, this week.

### GRYFFINHOLD

She watched the Order members - new and old - mingle in Gryddindor’s enormous ballroom. 

There was a sort of raised edge all around the enormous octagonal room, separated by steps down to a large parquet expanse for dancing and mingling. This edge was scattered with small tables and elegant benches, interspersed with evergreen trees in enormous decorative pots. In recognition of the season, the trees were all covered in glowing lights, spun glass, and tinkling bells. The room itself was mostly enclosed in the sort of glass and wrought iron she associated more with period conservatories and glass palaces than ballrooms, and the view it afforded of the snowy night sky reminded her of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. 

She’d only met the room with her guests tonight - her guests, some of the best and most prominent people in Wizarding society. There was no stamp of Hermione here. She felt… more subsumed by the weight of the place than buoyed up by her new-won stewardship of it. 

Sirius, of course, sensing her determination to grapple with this, had passed quietly and left a wink and a new, full glass of sparkling red wine in his wake. It was a very Sirius way to reassure - less anxiety inducing than a pep talk and incredibly irreverent - and she suspected she appreciated it.

“Was he bothering you?” came a slow, deep voice. 

Hermione smiled, turning to nod in greeting to Kingsley Shacklebolt, smiling slightly and resplendent with his white formal robes and the characteristic gold hoop in his left ear. She didn’t think, she mused, that she’d ever seen a _lack_ of hair that so suited someone before. “What, Sirius? No, just being himself,” she smiled, taking the Auror in. His grace, despite his sheer muscular massiveness, was rather arresting as he turned neatly to stand beside her, on the edge of things surveying the room. They’d had dinner several times by now, chatting about politics and the war and the Ministry at some of London’s finest restaurants - Muggle and Magical alike - but he remained at a sort of formal distance from her, and she still wasn’t certain what to make of it. He seemed to willingly indulge her gaze for a minute before looking back and catching her at it. 

“Thank you, sweet sorceress, for inviting me to this hallowed place and Order,” he rumbled, his white teeth dazzling in his widening smile. 

She blushed slightly, shaking her head. “It’s only right you be here, Kingsley. You would have found your way in the end.” He continued to smile at her, looking somehow both appreciative and expectant as a flush rose on her cheeks. She stumbled for words. “I… em. If you don’t mind my asking, what _is_ it with you and Sirius - and, come to think of it, _Remus_ \- anyhow?”

His smile faded slightly as he nodded, his eyes flicking reflexively to the two - Sirius on one knee making extravagant gestures between the chocolate mousse and an embarrassed (but grinning) house elf, likely complimenting the chef, and Remus chatting at a bit of an exaggerated distance with a guarded-looking Severus. 

“Not at all,” he rumbled, shaking his head. “With Lupin I honestly couldn’t say, though I suspect sheer loyalty to his friend - not that I find that anything but honorable, mind you. But when Black and I were first out of Auror training, we were partners for a while. We were rather the odd ones out - most new recruits are paired with more experienced people at first, but the numbers were wrong or something or the sort. And it turned out,” he said with a rueful sigh, “that Black had a rather pronounced axe to grind against the 28 and I, though I believe I have mellowed somewhat since, against the more dangerous of the demi-humans. After tensions rose when he was rather disrespectful in interrogating a cousin of mine, we came to actual blows after a meeting in which I presented my thoughts on how we could better address the Werewolf Problem.”

Hermione felt her shoulders stiffen. “The… I’m sorry?” 

He smiled gently, not noticing her tension. “The Werewolf Problem, my dear. Or, perhaps, the Werewolf _Question._ Don’t fret - I don’t believe the danger is nearly so high as it was while the war was still more active. But yes. It was a brilliant plan, if I do say so, involving simple registration and clearly identifying badges for all peaceable lycanthropes abroad in wizarding society. We could then focus our containment efforts on the noncompliant ferals and see about providing - safe, and of course remote - employment through ministry programs for the better few. But Sirius swore a blue streak and actually decked me before I had finished proposing it, and I don’t know what happened after, but I submitted my findings to our superiors afterward in writing, and have never heard another word.” Kingsley shrugged, his expression wistful. “Actually befriended one of the poor blighters in the course of my research - and now, he’s the head gardener at the Shacklebolt hunting lodge in the Balkans. I honestly don’t believe he’d hurt a fly.”

Hermione blinked slowly, passing her wine glass from hand to hand. “You… do realize that there is already at least one werewolf in the Order, do you not?”

Kingley blinked in surprise, and then slowly smiled. “Oh, that’s brilliant. Whose strategy was that?”

Hermione turned to him slowly. “Em, so Kings -” she said, noticing his boyishly charming grin at the abbreviation of his name even as she controlled her internal boil, “I know… I know that in the fullness of time you’re going to come to see the _people_ \- for werewolves _are_ people, just like you and me - of whom you speak to to be just that, _people._ People with all the potential for depth, dimension, and complexity that any of us have. But right now… I’m afraid I’m going to have to walk away from this conversation before I’m forced to hex your balls off.”

She smiled apologetically as he gaped. “I realize it takes time to work through inherited prejudices, but you’re better than this. Goodbye, Kingsley.”

And she walked away. 

❧

She wondered, as she looked out over the railing, how the Hold managed to heat the balconies in December.

There was no chill, no wind, and no crunching snow here - and she didn’t even hear the approach until the large cashmere shawl had been extended over her own bare shoulders, along with Narcissa’s arm. “You look drained, lover. Talk to me?”

Hermione smiled a bit, snuggling up to the blonde gratefully despite the relative warmth. “It turns out that the charming, flower-language-knowing Mr. Shacklebolt is, at this point in his life, something of a bigot.”

Narcissa studied her face curiously. “But he _loves_ Muggles! Surely-”

Hermione was already shaking her head. “He wanted to…” she sighed, cutting herself off. “His views with respect to werewolves leave much to be desired.”

Narcissa’s eyes flicked back toward the Ballroom - and Hermione didn’t need to look to know to whom. “Well… yes. There were,” she sighed, looking out over the ravine below, “there were _several_ families who made their polite apologies about attending Lucius’s little fetes because of their distaste for cavorting with the lower races, instead of or in addition to any stance they might have on Wizarding or pureblood supremacy. The Shacklebolts are historically purists when it comes to humanity, magic or no. He would have been spoon fed his beliefs accordingly for years.”

Hermione shrugged. “He was over it, before the second war. I miss that Kingsley.”

Narcissa nodded, kissing Hermione’s temple. “I’m sure that you hastened his progress toward perspective simply by expressing your ire, pet.”

Hermione shrugged. “Yeah, I just… well. Look, I know you’ve had to play a role to survive large swaths of your life, but I appreciate your basically instantaneous curiosity and openness to Muggles and Muggleborns as soon as you were out from under domineering thumbs, I guess.”

Narcissa’s eyes raked her face in the quiet before she shrugged, nodded, and rested her silken head on the other woman’s shoulder.

They stood, silent, for some time before Hermione spoke. “So you’re in the Order, now. And you’re at Godric Gryffindor’s stronghold, too.”

Narcissa shivered against her. “And doesn’t it feel good to make my dear Aunt Walburga take a good turn or two in the family crypt.”

Hermione smiled up at her, kissing her cheek, before a thought occurred to her. “Have you ever been close to anyone who wasn’t a pureblood before? Of… of unadulterated heritage?”

Narcissa laughed. “My sweet girl, my dear nurse as a babe was a Veela - and she was my great grandmere, too, if I’ve read correctly between the lines. I’ve also heard credible-seeming talk that the Blacks have siren blood. That sort of thing is hardly as rare as the bluster might have you think.” She paused a moment, eyes flickering as she combed her memory. “I have also… _known_ some who are not, strictly, entirely human.”

Hermione glanced sideways at her. “Go on.”

Narcissa met her eyes with a sideways look of her own. “I haven’t had much chance to get well acquainted with any but elves and Celine - my nurse - but my lord husband was and likely _is_ a bit of an odd man. He enjoyed orchestrating his own cuckolding, and liked to escalate the stakes. I have ridden the shoulders of a quite brawny centaur - though thankfully never been subjected to one’s less delicate parts. I have also, though I admit I was less enthused at the start of it, been cajoled into the arms of a half-vampiress.”

Hermione blinked. “Damn. How was that?”

Narcissa gave a little shudder. “I admit to having made certain she was included on future guest lists.”

Hermione nodded slowly. “But Draco…?”

Narcissa scoffed, shaking her head. “Very much his father’s son, may Merlin help him.”

“I…” Hermione sighed, turning toward the blonde. “You will be _so_ proud, Narcissa. There will likely still be awkward periods, but… it seems ages ago, now, but most of the last year he’s been… just, a rock to me. And an incredible partner.”

Narcissa did a double take, eyes widening. “Hermione,” she squeaked, “are… are you saying that you, and _my son_ , were… were…”

Hermione felt her face go crimson. “Good Godri- _no!_ ”

Narcissa relaxed, turning toward her.

“I mean, only that one night, but-” Hermione sputtered.

Narcissa gasped, holding the sides of her face and shaking her head. “Salazar, Hermione! You might have said!”

Hermione cringed away. “Look, he was … it was… we’d both been drinking and he was my _age_ , Narcissa. Do you have… do you have the slightest idea how odd of a situation this all puts me in? My… my ex-husband is asleep in Sirius’s house right now, and he’s hardly a _toddler_ yet! And you… you should have seen the look you gave me when _we_ first met. I was disgusting to you, or so you would have had me believe, and I was only a child. Then… then you _watched_ Bellatrix carve into my arm, in _your_ house.”

Narcissa paled, the tension seeping out of her. “I… Hermione, I didn’t…”

Hermione shook her head, leaning on the rail separating the balcony from a long drop. “It’s… look, it’s difficult. It _all_ is. A certain amount of overlooking the extent to which my very presence here is incredibly fraught goes into every relationship I form, now - on my side as much as that of anyone else’s, if they know my origins. For me there’s… there’s grief, prior enmity, recollections of people as my friends’ _parents_. As heroes who tripped over feet of clay. As villains who might prove themselves redeemable, and tonight, even, as flawed people who… really disappoint me by having a hell of a lot of growth ahead before they become the people I think they should be.” She shook her head. “It’s… lonely, Narcissa, and alienating, for me to let myself think of it, and I don’t want to let that kind of distraction in. It would be so easy to let it overwhelm me. A few times, it nearly has.”

She heard Narcissa’s hesitant approach behind her. “I… Hermione… I’m _grateful_ you’re here. I never want to be the woman who sneers an innocent child, or who is complicit in one’s torture. From what I gather, in pieces, even in my _son’s_ torture, his warping into someone I _know_ he is not supposed to be. Even… even if that’s a time-honored _tradition_ in pureblood circles,” the low, anxious voice murmured.

Hermione sighed. “‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you.’”

Hermione turned to see Narcissa blinking. “That’s… a poem?” she asked, her pale grey gown shimmering, matching her eyes in the dark. 

“Yes. Philip Larkin. I think it’s in print already. But… it’s not limited to purebloods. Gods, talk to Severus about his upbringing sometime, and you’ll see that quickly enough.” 

Narcissa canted her head, falling in beside Hermione at the rail. “Why him?”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “He interests you. You’re attracted to him. And you respect him, too.”

Narcissa had the sense not to argue it wasn’t all true. “I’m with _you_ , Hermione.”

Hermione shook her head. “I appreciate your loyalty, but that’s… not a form of it I need or feel remotely entitled to. You’re separated, but you’re married to a man you haven’t thoroughly given up on. Also, I’m with you, Severus, _and_ Sirius. Maybe Remus. Merlin, I might’ve been with _Kingsley_ soon, too, were he not such an… ethical late-bloomer. This is a time when you’re… legally entitled to explore other options, right? You say you don’t think you and I are for the long term because you don’t want to share, but what if you had more than just the space I keep for you in _my_ heart dedicated to you? Narcissa, you have _freedom._ Hell, I’ve been trying to think how to get you and Severus together for a while now, besides. You’re mutually smitten.”

Narcissa looked at her with wide eyes, speechless. 

Hermione held her gaze a moment before cracking a lopsided smile and reaching out to stroke a thumb along her cheekbone. “I’d also kind of love to… _well_. We can talk about it at a less fraught moment, if I can even ever figure out how the hell one brooches such a subject, but I don’t always want to dominate _or_ be mastered, and the two of you have more complementary tastes, in that area. I think you might enjoy each other’s company quite a bit.”

To Hermione’s horror, Narcissa started to cry. “I want _you_. It’s one thing to know I _can’t have_ you, but don’t… don’t fob me off to tie up your loose ends, Hermione. I’m a woman falling in love with you, not a problem for you to solve. And I retain my sodding dignity.”

Hermione blinked a moment before pulling Narcissa into her arms. “I… Cissa, I would never, I’d _never…_ fuck, look, that’s not how I meant it at all. I want to see you _thrive_.” Narcissa just buried her face against her neck, hiding under the thicket of Hermione’s own curls and sobbed harder, the wet of her tears hot on Hermione’s skin.

Hermione looked heavenward, wondering if any deities wanted to help her out with this, before she tried again to rally her words. 

“Narcissa. You will _not_ lose me until _you_ tell me we’re done. I’m a woman falling in love with _you_ , too. My… look, I’m jealous of Lucius. I’m jealous he got to put his pretty, unworthy hands all over you for years before I even _saw_ you, much less touched you. But I wouldn’t begrudge you anyone who was actually good for you, who had your best interests at heart. And… I can’t say I would regret it if the three of us were together in universally mutual affection, but I know that… Circe and Morgana, Narcissa, honestly I can’t imagine anyone who could resist falling at least a little in love with you.”

Narcissa turned her face a little, looking up at Hermione. “You’re… you’re falling in love with me?”

Hermione sighed and nodded. “I… yes, of course I am, you great... ninny!”

Narcissa sulked, gathering her shawl around herself. “With a _ninny,_ no less. Well. How unfortunate for you!”

Hermione growled and lunged at her, sweeping her up snogging her soundly, bending her over the rail and dangling them both over the abyss of swirling snow below.

When Hermione finally let up, both still bent over the long drop, they were panting and Hermione was almost angry as she finally gathered herself to speak, though she had the sense to recognize it was at herself, or maybe fate, but not Narcissa. “ _I’m_ the ninny. And I lied. I _already_ love you. But I know you can’t do this - that this is a place you can only pass through. And I’m not going to ask you to contort who you are or how you love to stay with me, dammit.”

Narcissa gaped at her, sputtering for words.

And Hermione heard the door from the ballroom open and Dumbledore’s voice pouring out. “Ah, yes, I’m sure I saw her come this way, just a moment, if you will. Hermione?”


	65. In Darkness Bind

### LITTLE HANGLETON - DECEMBER 27, 1981

“I must reiterate, Horace, that I have only slightly more insight regarding our current errand than do you,” rang Severus’s weary and slightly raised voice as the strange fellowship trudged down the disused old road through the forest. 

“Tcch, clever boy, I can’t but think you know more than you’re letting on - but very well! I can’t say I like all this traipsing through the wilds, but, well… I trust your Ms. Granger wouldn’t drag us out all this way lightly! And you would never condone her doing so, either, eh, Albus?”

Dumbledore, who walked beside her and was increasingly quiet as they approached their destination, simply nodded, his wand raised alongside Hermione’s to slash at the boughs that had overgrown the gravel lane.

“I say, if this is some new manner of initiation I’ve yet to undergo, I must remind you all that I’ve only _just_ retired!”, lamented Slughorn, to whom Hermione had been reintroduced at his official induction into the order two days prior. “Surely such rites can be waived for those who’ve done such service as I, over so many, many years.”

Hermione adjusted the weight of the heavy tome under her arm as she walked, letting Sirius’s well of infinite charisma smooth over both Moody’s rising ire (he’d seemed one huff from shouting for a quarter mile, now) and Slughorn’s petulance. “My dear professor, I was wondering if you might look over my notes on a protective draught Alastor brought to my attention,” Sirius was saying. “I hope to add it to my NEWT curriculum, if that’s well with Severus, of course…”

Meanwhile, Remus stepped up beside her, lifting his wand to help so that Hermione could carry her burden with both arms. “What is that ghastly book?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. “You are aware it’s bound in human skin, are you not?”

Hermione nodded with the same dogged tiredness with which she took each further step. “I thought it might be.”

“What on earth _is_ it?” he asked, glancing between her and Dumbledore.

It was the latter who answered. “Ms. Granger asked, yesterday, where the books that I’ve winnowed out of the Restricted Section over the years are kept. This, which was until recently locked in a cupboard in my office, was removed in the late 1940s, as I recall, after some hapless soul used it to resurrect a beloved pet hippogriff to ruinous ends. I believe it may be the only remaining copy of the miserable thing, though I never can get a straight answer about the full catalog at Durmstrang.”

Hermione nodded, smiling wanly. “I’m not altogether optimistic there aren’t some private collections among the older houses that might still have it, too. This monstrosity, which bears no title, was the last collaboration between Merlin and Morgana, and is rumoured to have played a greater role in rending the two apart than did other machinations in their time. It’s predominantly full of predictions that, thankfully, turned out to be utter bunk - but also includes some rather disturbing potions’ recipes.”

Remus blinked at her, letting the weight of such origins sink in, while she hauled the thing along in disgust - letting it get thwacked by gnarled branches and generally treating it with a disdain that seemed quite un-Hermione-like. 

“Something’s ahead,” muttered Alastor, pushing past Hermione, Remus, and Dumbledore and standing protectively in front of them, want aloft and lit in the twilight. 

Hermione shrugged. “I suspect we’re almost there, then. The estate as such was defunct ages before this last foothold was last inhabited, but some of the spells - including a rather nasty prohibition against Apparition - remain in place, here.”

The entirety of the party quieted some at that, all sobering but for Dumbledore, who smiled gratefully at Moody and conceded to him the right of leading them along. “My goodness, how positively gallant of you, Alastor. Tsk, how you never ended up romantically ensconced somehow despite your ferocious protective instincts, skill, and utter kind-heartedness -”

“- _Dumbledore,-”_ Moody growled, reddening.

“- I may _never_ understand.” Albus shook his head and glanced to Hermione and then Slughorn. “You both have a knack of attracting fascinating souls. Surely you could help a dotty old headmaster set up one of his best erstwhile pupils with a nice girl, couldn’t you?”

Alastor was beet red and grumbling under his breath as he forged ahead, eye twitching alarmingly and wand slashing almost too quickly. Hermione sighed. “Only if he’d like me to, you horrible meddler. You really ought to listen to me and stop orchestrating people's lives for them.”

Sirius, from behind them, could be heard muttering, “Oh, look, the pot’s imparting wisdom to the kettle again, this will go well.”

Fortunately, it was then that they broke into the little clearing that surrounded the shack. 

The clearing, which at this point was hard-pressed to live up to its name, was not maintained. Still, in the early moonlight, it seemed as if the trees had shrunk back somehow from the squatting hovel of mildewed shingles and rotted boards in the center - all but for a rather menacing spike of brambles that was projecting several branches up through the roof itself. There was a shocked silence as the assembled took it all in - from the broken window panes to the bent, rusted nails pocking the half-hinged front door, off one of which a sad little reptilian skull still hung. 

A few blinks later, Hermione spun to face the others, a twig still attached to a few brown leaves stuck in her hair. “Right. No one goes a step closer. I mean it - no one. Many of you are here for a bit of a confrontation with the severity of our situation, but all of you are also here because each of us is a talented magician, and each might perceive something that others could miss. Yes, even Albus. _Especially_ Albus. And I’d honestly rather you all have to see what we’re contending with than try and have one of you launch a controlled burn from here - if that would even work.” With that, she dropped the evil book at her feet and pulled a rather gaudily-sheathed sword from a lumpy pocket in her oversized cardigan. “Now. Assume, because I’m telling you so and it’s absolutely true, that some of the most dangerous and evil magic imaginable is in that shack, and in all likelihood around it. Assume, too, because I’m also telling you this, that whether directly or indirectly, it’s all Tom Riddle’s doing - oh, save your flinching, Horace, he’s not powerful enough to listen at present.” She shook her head. “Look. I want you all to think of all the ways you could possibly protect yourselves and each other from any vile bullshit that might be lurking, and talk about it for a few minutes at _at least_ this distance before anyone gets clever and tries to poke so much as a _Revelio_ at this heap. Got it?”

To no one’s surprise, despite going last and not bothering to repeat anything, Dumbledore spoke twice as long as even Moody, who at some point started madly taking notes on new ways to exercise his paranoia in the future. He ended with, “Well, and I’ve never encountered anything yet that a few of those little protectives wouldn’t handle, but I suppose for the truly risk-averse, you could also try an initial survey of the scene through a level 5 astral projection - rooting yourself to no fewer than ten potent protection charms. Yes, yes, I _assure_ you, Alastor, it _can_ be done with more than three, I’ll explain later.”

To everyone’s surprise, Hermione shook her head. “Actually, I rather think you should explain now, Albus. As you yourself have recently observed, our dear new Professor Moody is incredibly gallant, protective, and a damned fine Auror. I didn’t know you could root yourself to more than 5, but I think both that it would do us all good to know as much as possible, first, and, second, make the most sense to send in someone who is not only skilled and suspicious but unlikely to be charmed into this mire. It might even help him to perceive things better, to be in a somewhat spiritual shape.”

And so it was that, 11 minor squabbles and twenty minutes later, Hermione stood grimly at the head of Alastor Moody’s body while his soul took his sweet damned time, she increasingly thought, rummaging about in the vile old hovel. 

Five minutes after that, her foot was tapping… right up until Moody gasped in a huge breath and sprang up to sit, almost falling as he struggled to get to his feet before Sirius and Remus took his arms to steady him. 

“Sweet Helga, that was a miserable walk, Granger,” he eventually huffed out when he’d gathered the breath. 

Hermione sighed. “I can only imagine. What did you see?”

Moody shivered slightly and then stepped a few more yards back toward the road, before felling a large old beech and sitting on the resulting stump. To be fair, the tree had decidedly seen better days, but it still made Hermione jump a bit as the trunk shook the ground. “Dark fucking magic, is what I saw.” 

He gathered himself and the others gathered around closer, Horace in particular casting wary glances over his shoulder at the shackas they waited for more.

Finally, Moody shook his shaggy head. “Look. That place has been home to damn little domesticity or goodness for hundreds of years. It’s got angry ghosts who don’t remember who they are to scare the knickers off the Bloody Baron, and potions soaked into the floor boards that would take your foot off - and that was only the background noise. In the middle, in some ungodly nest of menacing magical folderal just heavy enough on lace and polish to show it was the work of a braggart, there was this black… thing. I think it was a stone set into some piece of jewelry, maybe a ring.”

He shook his head, taking a long draw from his flash and glowering up at Hermione. “You know the significance of something looking that dark and inert when you’re projecting, girlie?”

Hermione furrowed her brow, about to nip back, but Severus spoke first. “For something to look that dark, that… inert… it would need to be either unnaturally devoid of any sort of spirit - even the sort something inherits from the materials that it’s made from, or the sort something accretes from use for a specific task - or so tainted by something ghastly that a caster thought it better to make it look like a sort of psychic black hole than to let its true appearance show.”

Hermione bit her lip, glancing back at Alastor, who shivered. “Well, whatever that thing was, it didn’t suck - it _crooned_. I almost touched the damned thing and it sodding terrified me. I didn’t feel like it would have been much fussed that I was supposed to be magically inert without my body, either. Nothing that makes such vague, pretty promises I’ve ever met can be trusted - at all.”

Hermione sighed and offered Alastor a little bottle. “Would you mind decanting the memory of it for us? I’ve a small sieve with me, and I think others might need to see it.”

Albus, of course, knew how to project the memory of the object and its environs - played on a book on a mouldering table - so that all could see it at once. As the memory rotated around to show the front of the stone instead of what indeed proved to be a ring setting, Dumbledore paled and tensed, and Hermione’s fingers sank into his arm through his sleeve, making him turn toward her in vexation - just as Horace began to speak.

“But… that’s… I’ve seen that before. It… it belonged to Tom. He wore it, I think, while sitting his NEWTs.”

Hermione took a deep breath before she spoke. “After you’d talked about Horcruxes, then.” 

Horace spun in horror and a hastily assembled front of outrage sprang up and then fizzled around him as tears came to his eyes. “Oh… Oh sweet Salazar, how…? But then…”

Remus cocked his head, looking from ashen face to ashen face curiously. “What the hell’s a horcrux?”

Dumbledore, meanwhile, had sank down to sit in the leaf litter and lean back against Slughorn’s stump. 

Sirius squinted in concern between Slughorn and Dumbledore, then looked up to Lupin. “Some sort of horror among dark magics. My dear ol’ mum used to threaten to use me to make one if I didn’t renounce Gryffindor and get my Dark Mark. Never really got a handle on the specifics, though not for lack of trying.”

Severus sank down into a crouch, his eyes darting from side to side as he thought as though they were skimming the pages of some riveting book. “Is that it, then? How the Dark Lord wished to demolish his own mortality? All those straw men, all those little promises of lesser magic dangled before the likes of Lucius Malfoy and the others in the Inner Circle, but all along he had split his soul? Fuck, no wonder… his eyes… I thought it was an affectation, but what must he have done to maintain… any semblance of normality despite…” Severus suddenly sprang up, a sort of grim determination and tension pressaging action in his posture. “But this is incredible! If this, indeed, is why he was not fully vanquished, inside that hut lies the key to banishing him for once and all, and-”

“Tom… wouldn’t leave it unguarded, even with incredible spells protecting it, were it the sum total of his scheme,” said a very tired-sounding Dumbledore as he gazed, lost in thought, at the hovering memory. He had magnified the image to such an extent that the barely paler lines describing the symbol engraved in the stone’s surface were clearly visible. Then, suddenly but quite softly, he addressed Slughorn. “Horace, Professor Granger mentioned you’d discussed Horcruxes with Riddle. Am I correct to infer that you did not speak of ‘ _the Horcrux’_ singular, as a concept, say, but about multiple such constructs?”

Horace, who’d been sniffling, wide-eyed, and shaking his head, buried his face into his hands and wailed. 

Hermione, moved unexpectedly by pity, let go of Dumbledore and went to rest a hand on the elder Potions Master’s shoulder. “Riddle thought… that the most sacred magical number, the most powerful, had to be seven, Albus.”

Horace was wracked with more and more violent sobs, his head snapping from side to side in denial. Dumbledore was standing up, a calculating gleam in his eye. 

Hermione spoke. “Albus, it’s no more useful than the Mirror of Erised. Harry saw both and told me. The damned thing killed you, in my time. Severus couldn’t stop the necrosis of the curse from spreading before your hand and arm were destroyed and your days were very seriously numbered. You lived the final not-quite-year of your life in a great deal of pain and … it had far-reaching influences on other events, other lives. Don’t try it. It cannot, _cannot_ , bring back what you have lost. It’s a fool’s Hallow.”

Sirius and Severus looked at her a bit quizzically after that word choice - but Dumbledore did still, gathering his breath. 

Hermione patted Horace’s shoulder, glancing around at the flock of miserable, pensive wizards around her. “Look. I am very sorry to have cast this pall over your holidays, all of you. _Very_ sorry. But I need Horace to return to his post and enter the Order a little humbled - and Professor, I am sorry for this, and so soon after we met, but you may have additional insights to share now you’re in this with us with a bit of a head start. Alastor, you’re going to need to work with Dumbledore to get him a priority visit to one Morfin Gaunt, who once lived here, and who was convicted of the deaths of Voldemort’s Muggle father and grandparents on the basis of false memory. I think… well, if he’s well enough, there may be one redeeming act he might yet contribute as a free man, and he’s served too many years for something he didn’t do already. This needs to happen tomorrow - there isn’t a moment to waste.

“Besides that,” she continued, glancing around, “Severus, you may have new insight on old things overheard, now, and I’d like to ask you to accompany Narcissa in a few errands that may look less suspicious for you both - might even be used to affirm your covers as dark double agents - after tonight. Remus… well, you deserve to know, and I also thought you might perceive things here none of the rest of us did. Sirius, meanwhile,” she said, turning and clenching her teeth as she steeled herself, “I’m afraid we’ve got to visit your mother in the near future.”

Sirius, who’d already been shaken, looked at her like she’d slapped him.

She shrugged helplessly around at them. “This is the kind of monster we’re up against. I also need to entrust this book to the Potions Masters present, and you too, Albus - there’s a grotesque restoration spell in it that I want you to investigate for any possibility of ingredient substitutions. I’d initially thought… well, but we’ll have to come back here, anyway.”

Severus turned to her, perplexed. “Surely you don’t mean to leave this abomination here, Hermione?”

Hermione sucked air through her teeth, fidgeting. “Well… I think it’s the least risky option until we’re near the end. He’s… not well tethered, this time. By the time we were rounding up Horcruxes in my … my timeline of origin, I suppose… he was restored to his full power. In that state, he was vital enough not to notice the destruction of the first few horcruxes, spread so thin as he was, but I don’t know how that would work, honestly, with him disembodied or possessing things, hiding. It might immediately tip him off, and we’re just not ready for that yet. There are other concerns that need to be addressed first, and several of them will take time.”

Severus and Sirius both looked dissatisfied at this. Dumbledore was gnawing his own mustache. 

“Look,” Hermione sighed. “If I had any idea how to prevent it from causing serious harm, I’d say we should at least move it, but -”

Slughorn pointed his wand at the hut and shouted, suddenly, and Hermione felt a tremendous heat at her back before she could spin around -

Only to see the Fiendfyre hissing into death a bare inch from the foundation of the ruined home. 

Horace howled in defeat and resumed crying, sobbing apologies into his kerchief while a high, cold laugh could be heard from within the shed. Hermione shivered. “I think,” she said, “We should get moving, now. It’s late enough I don’t expect anyone to be abroad, still, in the village - we can go that way and Apparate back from the clearer end of this track. It’ll still be six years or so before the Muggles rediscover and decide to pave this here, I think, and in the meantime I think it’s just as well everyone knows how to Apparate to both ends. Let’s… let’s just go.”


	66. Rapprochement

### HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Hermione wasn’t very soundly asleep, anyway, when the soft knock came.

She disentangled herself from an uncharacteristically clingy Sirius, who had remained quiet and shaken through dinner and then asked if they could retire early. Once free, she threw her robe on and tiptoed to the outer door. 

The children were all with Narcissa tonight, thankfully, and with Ismay, who’d offered to her to help wrangle them all. The two women were bonding over shared heritage and love of wine, though Hermione thought she’d noticed some more pointed interest on Ismay’s part on Boxing Day, after she and any number of other new Order inductees had seen Hermione dangling Narcissa half over a railing in a passionate embrace on Christmas Night. 

After only tripping on one misplaced toy - a lincoln log, she thought - Hermione carefully, quietly, eased the door open a crack, squinting at the light of the hall.

“Hermione?”

Remus looked _so_ lost. 

Hermione let the door swing a little further open, fitting the breadth of herself in the gap. “Remus? Are you alright?”

Remus looked to both sides evasively, scratching the back of his neck, before swinging his green gaze back to her. “I’m… afraid I’m still fairly shaken. I … gods know, _gods know_ I’m sorry, and I hope _you_ do too, but I can’t think what you must think of me, let alone what Sirius must -”

Hermione cut him off with a shake of her head. “Remus, you needn’t -”

“Oh! Oh, no, I need! I _need!_ Hermione, I most abjectly apologize for my egregious trespasses. I will not blame you if you can’t ever trust me again, I have no words equal to the enormity of my lapse in judgement. Please, if you never hear any other words to fall from these lips, hear these: you did not deserve, after everything you have done for all of us and for me, specifically, to have your trust so reprehensibly violated. If ever I thought I might be equal to nobler things, I -”

Hermione shook her head, cutting him off. “You were right to think you were equal to nobler things, Remus, despite what I admit was a moment of extremely poor judgment. If you run from me with the notion you haven’t the strength of character to do better, I’ll hex your damned head off. You’re a young, hormonal, hopelessly messed up idiot, but you’re one of the best and most brilliant people I’ve ever had the privilege to know, too.”

He looked at her, stunned. 

She looked at him, even more tired than she had been.

After a long silence, she murmured, “You said you were shaken?”

Remus sagged. “I … I was going to ask if maybe you’d like to play chess, maybe cards, and have a cuppa.”

Hermione nodded. “You don’t want to be alone with your thoughts right now.”

Remus scrunched up his brow, a bit bashful. “Yeah. I really do not. But if you’re in for the night-”

Shaking her head, she shot out one hand to seize him by his lapels, then drew him into the darkened room, pulling the door closed after him. “Take your shoes off, and look out for errant toys in here, alright? Tell me if I’m about to run afoul of one, too - I know you can see better in the dark than I can.”

Remus stood still a beat, his mouth working as though he searched for words before he closed it and toed his shoes off. 

“Hang up your coat, then,” Hermione prompted when he looked at her, uncertain and expectant.

He shucked the tweed off, hooking it onto her coat tree, before his uncertain gaze returned to her again.

When he failed to move from the spot, she stepped a little closed to him, looking up into his eyes while somehow making him feel she was staring him down. “Will you ever so much as _play_ at doing anything to me again without my full understanding and consent?”

He blinked. “N-no.”

She darted up on her toes to give him a swift peck on the cheek, then set about unbuttoning his shirt.

He watched her do it, looking uncertain and even a little ill at ease. 

“Socks,” she prompted, after she’d worked the sleeves down his arms.

He paused a beat then hastily complied, lifting each of his feet to yank the offending articles off one after the other, then stuffed them in his jacket pocket. 

When he was done, he paused, waiting for her to finish raking her gaze over his bare torso. She eventually met his eyes, even as her fingers started to undo his belt buckle. “And you will be good to Sirius to the fullest extent you are able, and open with him about it when you inevitably experience setbacks? If only to tolerate his inevitable flirtation as he calms down, should nothing more rekindle between you?”

Remus nodded furiously, half-suppressing a little shudder as her fingers started to work at the buttons of his fly.

She glanced at him sharply. “Tonight, we sleep, Remus. Sirius is already in my bed. He was shaken, too, and I do not wish to wake him. Will you be able to sleep, in bed with us both?”

Remus blinked, his breathing a little ragged. “It’s… honestly not something I’d even hoped to have another opportunity to do. Are you certain…?”

Hermione looked up at him for a long moment, then tucked a lock of dark gold behind his ear. “Yes.”

Haltingly, he raised his own hand to brush his fingers tentatively against his cheek. Before his hand could withdraw, she leaned her face into the curve of his palm without looking away from his eyes. 

Then she led him back to the bedroom and crawled into Sirius’s arms, pulling Remus behind her. She tugged at both men until Remus’s front curved close around her from behind and her legs were tangled with Sirius’s, her face buried against his chest. 

“ _Behave_ ,” growled a mostly sleeping Sirius, before flopping his arm over both the other two and dragging them more tightly to him.


	67. Runaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hermione faces new and interesting perils!
> 
> Please note: there are some references to Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery in here. Can't really recommend the game, which has unethical (my opinion) in-app-purchase hurdles to it. But it does create some canonical characters and problems for Hogwarts that would already be in early phases at this point of the timeline, including several kids who need mind healers and this whole Cursed Vaults thing, which I intend to have Hermione ask Dumbledore to mop up and then leave alone.

### DECEMBER 28, 1981

Hermione woke to loiter perhaps a minute in a place of warmth and heady scents, buoyed by strong arms and stronger chests with warm breath ruffling her hair. 

When her eyes had fluttered open to sights of white-gold hair and dark, dark lashes in the sunlight, she’d blinked… and then rocketed up out of the very beguiling pocket of warmth she’d occupied propelled by a strong instinct for peril avoidance, springing awkwardly to her feet and leaping off the mattress with her chest heaving from exertion after neither warm up nor warning. 

She wobbled awkwardly on one foot on the bench at the foot of the bed, which was just… where and how she landed, somehow… and attempted to make as little noise as possible and _not move_ until it became apparent that neither man would wake. 

As she climbed down and started to rifle through her wardrobe, Sirius and Remus each flopped over on their backs and instinctively reached out, flailing around for a … departing heat source? Stolen pillow? Partner _both_ had been known to push into prior to actually waking up? She wondered what their sleeping minds and scrunchy little brows thought had just eluded them. _And_ resisted smoothing the brows, quenching the aches.

After a tense couple of minutes, two grumpish groans skulked over her rapidly dressing back as two large, sleeping predators confronted with a pocket of cold air and groused in their sleep. Then, they adjusted, each turning over to face in opposite directions in their own gesture of unreadiness for Discourse (let alone _that ‘_ course), though cordiality was maintained in in the gesture of pressing their backs together with little snore-punctuated grunts before both dozed back into the deeper realms of slumber.

Hermione was out the door before she could be embroiled in any discussion, verbal or otherwise, that she felt quite strongly needed to happen _without_ her, first, and in the early morning light, dragged her trainers onto her feet in the hallway before heading to the door at the end of the hall.

❧

...Where she found Albus and Moody already sipping tea.

Both looked at her as if they’d been on the cusp of coming to get her - which thank _Godric_ they hadn’t. Well. So much for her jog, then.

“Ah! Good morning Headmaster, Professor!” she greeted them cheerily, delighting a bit at how both of them narrowed their eyes at her choices of title.

“Hermione,” Dumbledore greeted her with a nod.

 _“Professor_ _Troublemaker,”_ Alastor, who’d already looked away again, grumbled into his cup.

Hermione arched a brow, coming up the stairs to join them near the high window. “ _Voldemort’s_ the troublemaker.”

Moody _hrrmphed_ around a mouthful of scone with feeling, eyeing her up and down as he finished chewing. “I’m not at all certain,” he finally said, “that he’s cornered that market, lass.”

Hermione, who both fancied a good rejoinder and had been a bit stuck on Dumbledore’s observation from the preceding evening, eyed Moody back thoughtfully.

In this era, she realized, he was all of 40 years of age, maybe slightly less. Those years hadn’t treated him with care, certainly - but now that she’d lived through her own war, she could see, say, vestiges of Charlie Weasley in his scars, or of Bill or even the Remus Lupin she’d first known in the premature screaks of white that tumbled from his otherwise ginger temples. His eye was the most startling - and useful - prosthesis she had ever known, though, and his nose was only recently scarred. She should really help him with it before it was stuck permanently missing a chunk; he wasn’t vain enough to attend to healing such a thing fully if it didn’t actively impede his efforts to cleanse the isles of dark magic - single-handedly, single-eyedly, and single-leggedly if necessary. He was one of those barrel-chested, slab-built men of whom people said “He’s as broad as he is tall!”, and other such nonsense, but the fact was that he had a quick, intelligent gaze and wasn’t at all hard on the eyes. If he’d gone stale at all, he was… was… was a stale jammie dodger? Tough to sink one’s teeth into at first but soft and meltingly sweet within.   
  
_Only, well, rather more palatable,_ she was shocked to find herself thinking.

“Alastor, you know, I think Albus might have a point about you,” she mused as she sat, pouring herself some tea at Dumbledore’s gestured invitation.

Alastor’s previously inquisitive eyes shuttered, and he sat up stiffly to pull farther away from her thoughtful gaze. “I’m quite certain he did _not_. But about what, exactly, do you mean?”

“You’re a _catch,_ is what I mean. We ought to set you up with someone worthy of you,” she replied.

Alastor turned pale before flushing a deep, suffocating red-pink as he spluttered. Dumbledore smirked and glanced between the other two with great interest as the Auror huffed and hrmmphed through assembling the composure to reply. “Y-you! You don’t know half a whit about me, girl. Maybe I’m, I’m one of them that likes summat unattainable, like… like Sicilian Sirens, who’ve spoiled me for all mere women, or maybe… _maybe_ I’ve a thing for hags. Maybe I’ve a Muggle missus I’ve hidden so well, eh, that no one’s yet cottoned on to how I keep her, wrapped in silk and fluffed cotton with ten wee babies, so far from suspicion no vengeance could ever find them. Perhaps I’m… Perhaps I’m into blokes, eh? Maybe I’ve been pining along after old Albus here, sublimating all my despair at never having him into ridding the world of all the bad men bound to try their luck in challenging him. You don’t know, is all. Maybe I’m just not even interested - maybe I’m just above it all and that’s that.”

Albus, she noticed, was looking at Alastor consideringly, his eyes a little distant as he sipped his tea.

Hermione, meanwhile, squinted at the Auror for a long moment before slowly shaking her head. “Don’t think it’s any of those. Albus, has our brawny hero here ever courted someone that you’re aware of?”

Albus straightened out of the reverie he seemed to have fallen into when his eyes reached Alastor’s brawny, red-bristled calves - conveniently visible when the man wore a kilt. “Penny Mayhew, class of 1963. Ravenclaw,” Dumbledore replied promptly. “Thoughtful young woman, talented in Defense and Arithmancy, and two years his junior. Ran a small bakery in Godric’s Hollow. It’s a terrible shame,” he sighed, “what happened to Ms. Mayhew in the war. She was never formally in the Order, but she fell defending a family of Muggles who’d been caught out while caravanning on holiday.” He sighed, rubbing at his temples with thumb and forefinger. “Magical Herbology wasn’t to her taste, but she had an extraordinary way with fruit trees, and all the pests and guiding spirits who sometimes affect them. Never since has Great Britain produced such a peach.”

When Hermione glanced back to him, Alastor’s eyes were distantly thunderous. “No, _nowhere_ ever has, and nowhere ever _will_. But if you are _quite_ finished plumbing my most painful memories, I believe we’ve business today at Azkaban.”

Dumbledore looked a bit troubled for a moment, then shook it off. “I’m sorry, Alastor. And… I suppose we have. Hermione, as it turns out, I’ve been meaning to check on packing-up progress at Azkaban anyway, and can easily fold an unscheduled visit and interview with this Mr. Gaunt. Alastor was kind enough to bring his file over from the DMLE quite early, and as such I’ve a notion what evidence you might want me to review. 

Hermione nodded. “And it would also make sense for Narcissa and Severus, each - especially Narcissa - to do their own visiting in light of the season and the roles they must play for the other side. Last I knew, Narcissa planned on that today, anyway. I’ll check as soon as Alice or Sirius has had time to pick up the kids, or Harry and Draco will never let me leave - they think it’s hilarious to watch me try to fly a broom, these last few days, and my pride can’t take too many more falls. I want to go when she does - I think it wouldn’t send the right message for me to be holding her hand, say, but I fully intend to wait in the wings to make certain she’s not alone there.”

Albus nodded thoughtfully. “If I may… well, not to suggest that he is any less entitled to your support, but I suspect it might look best for all concerned were Severus to make his visits at a different time. There was a bit of rivalry between him and Lucius for Riddle’s favor, and were Lord Malfoy to garner the impression that Severus were suddenly closer to his wife, _or_ still quite close to his rather ruinous party crasher… or that too many movements were being coordinated in general…”

Hermione nodded in understanding, dashing a Patronus off to Severus to convey an update as she did. “Right. Right. No, that’s clearly the better way. Sorry - a lot of things hanging fire lately, and a lot of new snarls I haven’t had years to reflect on - afraid I’m a little behind myself some of the time.”

Albus peered at her over his glasses. “You’d be hard pressed not to be, my dear. Under _any_ circumstances. The last person I’m aware of to have undergone the sort of temporal trauma you’ve suffered, alone, required years of adjustment to integrate with society again in any meaningful way, and here you are changing the course of our history, largely undetected. I hope - as an ally, and perhaps still more, a friend - that you will take the time, when you need it, to step back and consider the strains you fight solely on the basis of the change of context you suffered, and then to consider the sheer tonnage of positive change you are driving here despite that. Part of me, lately, has been feeling remiss for not asking you if you’d like to attend more of the hearings and trials surrounding accused Death Eaters, but in all… I feel perhaps it’s more important we all do more to ease some of the weight off your shoulders.”

Hermione frowned a him for a long moment before finally shaking her head. “All that sounded very clever and insightful but also like the sort of thing I can’t afford to think much about yet, Albus. I don’t really want to get involved in the trials, though - except maybe for the party Remus and I served as bait for, and maybe for Malfoy himself, depending in part on how things go today. Em.” She paused in thought, glancing out the window and missing the long-suffering glance exchanged by her concerned colleagues. “Speaking of stretching myself thin, though… I understand that Gilderoy Lockhart will be returning to Hogwarts in January as a well-publicized victim of the events that transpired at Malfoy Manor. Which is likely as it should be, but I think it’s very important that he and any others caught up in the raid should be referred to spend time with Charity as they filter back to us. Oh, and some wizarding embodiment of trouble named Jacob, too! Can’t recall the surname…”

“Smgrrfllleg?” Albus suggested around a mouthful of powdered sugar seasoned with a bit of scone.

“That’s the one,” Hermione nodded. “And listen, Albus, I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: no more potentially fatal pedagogical tactics - I’ll work on the Chamber of Secrets with or without you, but _you_ need to take care of the damned Cursed Vaults, or they’re going to cause heaps of trouble - provided they aren’t already. Honestly, the whole debacle seemed so drawn out with tedium and avoidable crap I gave up halfway through reading about it. But I digress - Mind Healing referrals!” She tapped her nose in frustration as she tried to dredge up the right thoughts, “Oh! Em, some Hufflepuff, name of Jane, second year, promising student - honestly couldn’t tell you why but something strange is set to go awry for her and we ought not to let it - and another promising second year, Felix Rosier. They both need to be on the Mind Healing list.”

Alastor sat him straighter, eye whizzing. “Rosier, eh? Is he…?”

Hermione shook her head with a scowl at his dawning look of suspicion. “So far as I know, never got into much trouble at all in his life, but the boy’s father and elder brother just died, and I can’t help but think he must be miserable. Please remember he’s not the enemy should he wind up in your class.”

Alastor chuckled, shaking his head. “Alright, that’s me duly chastised, then. Anything _else_ horded up for us, then? Some spider we oughtn’t to dispatch, perhaps?”

Hermione genuinely considered this, choosing to ignore the amusement on both men’s faces. “I think I’ve more or less done for the spiders, thanks, although… Alastor, _you_ ,” she muttered, sticking her arm impossibly deep into a sweater pocket before producing a vial, “You are on my list. Be a dear and hold still. then.”

Albus’s eyes flickered between the two of them for a moment as Moody went stiff and straight in his chair, fight or flight writ all over his face, while she advanced on him, eyes on the amber glass ampule as she loosed the cork. 

“Ah, look at the time.” the headmaster said, rising from his seat. “I’m off to feed Fawkes - in a snit and moved into the Owlery again, just because I asked him to mind no sparks hit the books on his next burn… good luck, you both, and we can reconvene here at ten!”

And Albus swirled away, Disapparating.

“What,” Alastor rumbled, pointing at the vial Hermione was now squinting at and shaking, “is _that?”_

Hermione shrugged. “Lots of people have scars after wars. I took a little from Severus’s draughts, a little from Poppy, and a little from Horace - came up with this. Regrew my ex-brother-in-law’s ear with it.. Not to worry, it’s quite harmless, despite all the mandrake - stings like the devil, but -”

Alastor edged his chair backward until it hit the stone wall. “Listen, I’m very particular about potions… foods… glasses of water, even… so, em, Professor-”

“ _Hermione,”_ she corrected him, squinting at the ruin of his nose, too focused to fully notice the water coming to a boil.

“Hermione, then,” he growled. “I have not lived this long by letting people sprinkle me with suspect concoctions.”

She shrugged dismissively, looking at his nose from one side, then the other as he squirmed to turn the chair’s back away from the wall and un-corner himself without actually standing. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you drank Albus’s tea!”

“That,” Moody said, “was _Dumbledore.”_

Hermione let out a long _pssssss._ “Look, you great heap of paranoia, I’d never hurt you. Losing you in my war was one of the hardest things - both for our efficacy as an Order and for everyone’s morale - that I’ve yet to live through. You’re important, Alastor, and need taking care of as such.”

He scrunched up his face in frustration. “You calling me paranoid when clearly my level of vigilance isn’t enough in the end isn’t exactly reassuring, not that it helps you’re planning to pour Godric knows what right on the middle of my face. Look, Granger, I’ll acknowledge it’s probably kindly meant - _despite all the mandrake_ \- but no, no thank you,” he groused, managing to inch away again as she stepped close, smoothing her index finger over the divot where a considerable bit of bridge used to be.

She stopped and looked at him with flat exasperation. “This is a functional thing you’re ignoring. You developed apnea, Alastor. Couldn’t snooze if you had to hide behind enemy lines because the snore shook the surrounding old-growth oaks.”

He blinked in surprise. “Penny said I never snored!”

Hermione nodded, feeling the bait took. “You may never have when you had _an entire nose.”_

He squinted at her. “You’re bluffing, dragonheart. Now, I’ll be going, and-”

She squawked as she nearly tripped over a moving chair leg as he slid away from her reach, no longer even slightly subtle in crab-walking the chair away in flight, then crossed her arms, looking every inch the cross professor. “Alastor Moody, you _will_ stay put!”

“Not bloody likely,” he grunted, both eyes rolling in panic now as he hit another wall and fumbled for his wand.

“Hold still, you big baby!” Hermione tutted, climbing over his lap to reach his face despite how he leaned as far as he could from her, plucking his wand from his pocket and stashing it in her too-deep breast pocket as she went, before tipping the bottle just so over the nose in dispute and…

A crash, a feminine shriek, and an indignant howl tore through the office. 

When the literal smoke (a side effect of the remedy she’d not yet been able to eliminate) cleared, Hermione found herself on the floor astride Moody’s hips in the remains of what must have been a rather delicate antique dining chair. She was lying prone over his hulking chest, which shifted with his enormous breaths as he fought to calm himself. Meanwhile, while trying to grab for his wand, he’d only managed to get his grasping hand caught between them - and… _well_. 

His nose, at least, was at least half restored, though it sizzled and shone red and raw where the potion had landed. 

And flanked by two still, intent eyes, both pointed right at her.

Hermione, flabbergasted, couldn’t suppress a little melting shiver - before she came to her senses, leapt up, tossed his wand at him, and, for the second time that morning, ran away - this time straight from an exceptionally burly frying pan and into Albus’s hearth fire. 

❧

“Cissa?” Hermione said, coming up just short of the table as she stumbled through the grate.

The remains of eggs and crumpets for the little ones were hastily piled on the counter but as yet unwashed - which was an uncommon sight in the typically pristine cottage. Curious, Hermione looked around, listened, and heard soft laughter - and saw flickers of strange light - drifting down from upstairs. 

Shrugging, she grabbed a crumpet, buttered it up, and bounded up the stairs, rather anxious to talk to someone about the disconcertingness of her day so far. 

“Cissa, love, you won’t believe-”

And so it was, thoughts elsewhere, that she went through the door, already ajar, into the master bedroom.

However…

Hermione’s crumpet fell forgotten from her hand as the play of unreal light hypnotized her, stilling her feet and putting a tremble in her knees

Atop the huge, gauze-curtained bed, a shuddering Narcissa writhed, riding astride the face of… it took Hermione a moment to realize it was _Ismay_. 

Both women were glowing full-moon white, their every sway and dip inhumanly erotic. But that wasn’t the end of it. Narcissa’s kneeling legs and curvaceous posterior were gathered in the strange, muscular architecture of a pair of magnificent wings, obsidian scaled, that had sprouted and extended from Ismay’s shoulder blades.

A moment after Hermione had stilled there, jaw dropped, the entire enormous span of them flexed open and flapped just enough to bounce Narcissa upward slightly and adjust her position, though Ismay’s wet mouth followed her center with a rapacity that seemed to transcend mere sex. Cissa’s hair, meanwhile, was swept upward in a swirling gale from which it seemed reluctant to descend.

Narcissa, meanwhile, seemed tight strung and blissed within a hair’s breadth of pain. As the beautiful, long lines of her naked torso stretched and rolled and flexed, she fluttered her own pair of small, prism-scaled pink wings - vestigial, it seemed, beside the span of Ismay’s, which seemed at least half again the Veela’s height.

Hermione’s breath came out in a deflation of her shoulders, though she remained rooted helplessly on the spot. _Right, well. She’s … she’s trying other things! That’s good! Not... that there’s a blessed thing I can do to compete with_ that.

Some part of her banged its fists on the back of her brain in protest, and she knew she’d be mortified later at her own voyeurism, regardless that it was both magically compelled and completely accidental.

And then, as Ismay’s tongue - long, muscular, and, Hermione realized with a jolt, _forked,_ slid up over Narcissa’s swollen center and thence into her - and up and up, pulsing to and fro salaciously and _gorgeously_ , for some reason, as Narcissa thrashed above, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes in her ecstasy until -

The light blinked out entirely on a long, familiar high note torn from Narcissa’s throat. 

Hermione stumbled backward into the door as the compulsion ebbed, and as the door was still in its half-open state, it just slid out from behind her, leaving her to crash over backward into the bannister in the hall. 

“Ah, ‘Eermione!” Ismay said, instantly bouncing up (and it was a hell of a bounce, Hermione couldn’t deny) and grinning in welcome. “Please, you must join us! I have been ‘elping ‘er to remember her heritage, non? Iz zhee not splendid? Zo zeldom do our children retain such _light_ when the blood of men mixes in their veins, but this one… oh ho ho!”

“Hermione,” gasped Narcissa in surprise and horror. “Oh, dear, this… it just happened, I was going to tell you at…. Is it past breakfast already in the great hall?”

Hermione steadied herself, trying to blink away the light-etched images burned into her eyes. “Em. No. I … well. Long day already, weird, _weird_ long day,” she cringed, shaking her head, “I’m so very, _very_ sorry to have intruded I…. I…. have to... ta!”

And before the other two women - wonders, whatever they were - could call her back, she was dashing back down the stairs and into the comforting warmth of the flames.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point our hero here is going to have a hilarious conversation with Charity about how she doesn't _always_ avail herself of every opportunity. The better part of valor, and all that.
> 
> Meanwhile, though: do you like to proofread? Seeking a beta-reader to mark up typos and point out things that have gone awry in drafts of future chapters. Very willing to reciprocally proof in a familiar fandom (and pretty good at it for writing that isn't my own). Please comment if you might be able to help me. Fringe benefits: you get sneak previews & I post more quickly? I donno, I could even try and dig up some smut that was edited out because it wasn't good for the plot or something if you want. Or write a one shot to a mutually agreed-upon prompt for you. Or something.


	68. The Way to Azkaban

Hermione had packed a good deal of brooding into a rapid breakfast. She’d barely remembered to say hello to Severus, who was looking at her with cautious concern. When Dumbledore finished off his toast and stood to go, she immediately rose mid-bite and tucked her half-eaten egg and cress sandwich into a napkin and thence one of her (less magical) pockets.

On the walk down to the gate to Apparate - as there were no working Floo connections at Azkaban - the two had only spoken once (as Moody, thankfully, had gone ahead). 

“Albus,” she’d asked. “Did you say all that, about gallantness and romantic prospects and such, to plant a seed between Alastor and me?”

Albus was thoroughly engrossed in using a crochet hook to patch a run in his scarf as they walked, sticking his tongue out a bit in his concentration. Hermione fumed for perhaps ten seconds in silence before he finished some tricky bit and, eyes still on his work, murmured his reply.

“If I had, would it be _so_ very terrible?”

Hermione _hrmmphed_ and folded her arms, glowering at him and letting herself fall behind a few steps. She’d gotten her answer. 

❧

### COCKBURNSPATH, SCOTLAND

The path to the Prison was not an easy one.

With the exception of authorized prisoner transports, visitors to the dark isle were… discouraged.

They were discouraged in large part by the sheer terror of the place - its dark history in the stormy, inhospitable North Sea, where the evil magic of the wizard Ekrizdis had at least stained the very stones - if not raised them from the otherwise sparsely-islanded waters in the first place. That Dementors themselves were rumored to be a mere side effect of his sorcerous machinations, an unplanned invention that may have themselves led to his ultimate insanity and death, were only one aspect of the pall that hung over the place. 

Hermione was irked to say half of what she’d been able to find in her research of the place had been little more than scholarly conjecture. Even the Ministry’s own records of its initial conversion into a prison had been heavily redacted by Damocles Rowle, the mad, Muggle-hating Minister of Magic who had capitalized on the magical community’s resentment of the then-new International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy to halt construction of a planned prison in the Hebrides. Azhaban, he had reasoned, was already a suitable fortress that came with ideal guards, both already at the Ministry’s disposal. Hermione supposed the guards may have been ideal to Rowle politically in that they slaked a certain thirst for punitive rather than rehabilitative justice for an angry populous, _and_ because, until Hermione had tried the Basilisk-imbued Sword of Gryffindor on them at Nurmengard, no one had had any idea how to permanently dispatch of them. It was certainly true, at least, that Dementors had been slow to spread beyond Azkaban as long as a steady supply of misery was provided for them, unless they were tempted elsewhere by mages - a good thing, but clearly not one to be counted on, in light of other governments’ evident willingness to export them for similar work and past/future revelations during the second war. 

The second deterrent, though, was one that Hermione had had no prior experience with - and it was the process of _getting_ there. 

The island had a connection to one Floo only, independent of the greater Floo network and rigorously spelled to remain thus. That connection was through some secret fire hidden in the Department of Mystery - and all prisoners were variously Confunded, blindfolded, and otherwise befuddled before being led there. The DMLE had a few small lockups, located at the Ministry and various urban outposts for temporary imprisonment, but all had to be transferred through this hearth in the end.

To make even that usage more difficult, the hearth only functioned at random intervals, signaling the Unspeakables tasked with its warding (at both ends) with only 20 minutes’ warning, and opening only for increments of 4 minutes or less. To add to the potential inconvenience of intervention in prisoner transport, the singular Floo issued plenty of false alarms to serve as drills, during which prisoners would be manacled, fettered, and otherwise readied in their cells, rousing them at all hours as necessary, only for transit to be aborted with a cheeky “pull the other one, ’s’got bells on!” at the last instant before jailors could lead them from their cells.

No one knew who’d taught the Floo to say, “pull the other one,” etc; apparently the initial plan had been for something with a little more gravitas.

Hermione knew all this because Aurors were briefed on the process - including Moody, who was chatting awkwardly with Narcissa on Cove Beach as they walked up. At the sight of them both, Hermione turned crimson and drew her neck as much as she could into the collar of her most careworn heavy cloak, which she’d spelled to resist water and resemble an old oilskin to Muggles in advance. She only managed her turtle’s retreat to the point of her nose, and she nodded awkwardly from that depth, wishing she’d also brought a scarf. Moody himself was blushing and looking _anywhere_ else, while Narcissa, looking worried, kept trying to catch Hermione’s eye.

The second way to get to Azkaban, as a visitor, started here in Cockburnspath. The closest you could Floo or Apparate in - even if you were Dumbledore, or so he said - was the village proper, from whence your journey began with a walk down to the beach. Hermione had hastily tucked a few quid into the conservation box as they passed it before assembling with the others. 

“Right, then. You know the steps?” Moody grumbled awkwardly, glancing quickly around to see the others all nodding and returning the gesture. “Time to start, then,” he said, and turned to face the sea. 

There were a couple cottages, both natural and built harbor walls, and even a lengthy old smuggler’s tunnel here - all very scenic, Hermione thought, even as she thought through the sequence.

_Hop twice right, hop once left, spin thrice, slap knees._

(She was extremely grateful there were no onlookers and that they were all politely refraining from gawking at each other.)

“Right then - it’s over here, mind your step,” Dumbledore remarked pleasantly, leading them over the rise to the wilder beach just North of the harbor area. 

“They really had no concept of accessibility when they devised this, did they?” muttered Hermione.

Dumbledore brightened, glancing back at her as he sucked one shoe from unexpected coastal muck. “Oh, heavens, no! It was the early eighteenth century! Do you know, it was an ancestor of mine, Abel Dumbledore, who devised it? He was an Unspeakable at the time, and one of the first generations of Dumbledores born here after immigrating from France.”

“Unspeakable, indeed,” murmured Narcissa, blasting what might once have been a part of a sea-dwelling mollusk from her high, tapered heel. 

Dumbledore continued as if he hadn’t heard her, rubbing his hands together in delighted anticipation. “Ah yes, here we are, then!”

A small, decidedly bedraggled old ruin of a bothy stood there, with “DUNN WEE’D HERE!” sprayed in white paint on its most intact side.

Dumbledore scrambled with youthful agility over one of the more bedraggled walls - perhaps four feet in remaining height - and promptly vanished, followed by Alastor. Narcissa paused and looked back at Hermione, who realized she’d allowed herself to be buttonholed too late. 

“Hermione, I thought you’d be happy- I had no idea, or I’d never -”

Hermione’s eyes widened and she rushed to grasp the other woman’s hand. “Oh! Oh, no no no no! I _am_ happy for you, Cissa - em, but can we revisit this in the ladies once we get there or something? I just really, truly did have a strange morning, and wasn’t expecting to be caught up in accidental voyeurism, literally unable to look away from, well, surprise! Two Veela radiating sexy compulsion -”

“-I’m _not_ a Veela! I’m hardly Veela at all!” Narcissa rushed to interrupt.

Hermione took a steadying breath. “Em, look, duck, you could sexually compel me with the best of them, is all I’m saying, but I don’t even know Ismay all that well, and I’d want to make sure it was okay with _you_ and that I was comfortable with _her_ before horning in, and… look, it’s _complicated,_ is all.” She sighed at the sight of Narcissa biting her lip and grabbed her in a quick but thorough kiss. “And Dumbledore is trying to set me up with Alastor, who I landed on top of after a very Molly stunt of not taking no for an answer about doing something for someone’s own good, and I woke up between Remus and Sirius this morning, and walking in on you was only the sodding icing, alright?”

Narcissa blinked in surprise, then her eyes went a little hazy, as though she were gazing off into the distance. “When you say you _woke up_ between Remus and Sirius, do you mean that…?”

Hermione blinked. “Fuck, no, there needs to be more talking there, too. Remus was just a little rattled by things yesterday. Things which _I will tell you about_ , Voldemorty things, only - shouldn’t we catch up?” Hermione said, wincing to hear a bit of a whine at the end of her own question.

Narcissa blinked, her focus returning to Hermione. “Alright, I suppose. Only you might’ve thought to share Remus with _me_ rather than my saucy slut of a cousin.”

Hermione gaped as Narcissa turned and hopped the wall, taking a minute before she could scramble after.

❧

### THE NORTH SEA

When Hermione reappeared, having undergone something like the compressive, hooking sensation of Portkey travel, she was wobbling at the edge of a dark, jagged rock, with barely enough room for the four of them to stand on with nothing but water to see in every direction all around them. 

When a wave crashed over the rock’s edge, Moody caught her elbow, saving her an ignominious dunking and pulling her gently to more solid ground - and coincidentally, against his own chest.

His voice was gruff as he looked down at her, blue eye zipping around frenetically while the brown focused on her. “Careful, there, lass. You alright to continue, then?”

Hermione, whose throat wasn’t working, blinked and nodded. 

Moody continued to look down at her, mouth twitching as if around the beginnings of words discarded before they could be said, while he raised his left foot and stomped three times.

And then the rock, after a short but terrifying lurch, began to sink.

Before Hermione, who’d immediately spun and drawn her wand, could cast anything, a bubble had begun to form around them, starting at their feet. Backing up into Alastor’s chest with a start, she looked around frantically. “No one told me _this_ was going to happen.”

Moody’s hands settled in an act of attempted soothing on her shoulders as Narcissa looked around at them both, smirking. “You can’t. It’s spelled that way. Always quite memorable, one’s first time.”

Hermione stuck her tongue out at the woman, quite certain that sauciness must run in the family, before putting her wand away. They were completely submerged now, the light above fading to a distant and rather bleak dot in the slate-dark sky, though some manner of beaked whale was visible some distance away, surfacing for air. A crowd of compass jellies was closer - though they dispersed quickly after a trilling, warning sound, to be replaced by two grim-faced Selkies. Both wielding tridents, and the two quickly flanked the mages’ bubble as it continued to sink and, now, also moved somewhat forward - or so Hermione guessed by what she could extrapolate from gut-felt changes in acceleration and the sudden backward pitch of the bubble.

Moody dropped his hands awkwardly but did murmur down at her. “Vigilance, Granger. The bubble doesn’t do anything to hold us in, so mind your balance and keep your wits about you. Sometimes this blasted thing needs to change course around a humpback without notice, or the guards joggle it to make sure you’re properly anxious about the trip.”

With the exception of a swirling school of mackerel, though, little interrupted their descent. 

Hermione couldn’t have said how long it took - anywhere from 20 minutes to 45, she would have guessed, as fraught as each moment in the deep dark seemed, surrounded by people to whom she probably ought to speak privately - later, after she’d thought and possibly had a few drinks in at least one case, and certainly not in front of each other.

She did notice that their heading and speed changed a few times, sometimes gradually, and others more abruptly, which led to all kinds of polite apologies and awkward collisions. 

And, likely, more effective obfuscation of their ultimate course. 

“I didn’t know there were Selkies in the Ministry’s employ,” Hermione remarked at one point, wondering if she had time to say hello in Mermish - or permission, for that matter. 

Dumbledore nodded, glancing around them and making an odd salute she recognized from his having made it to the denizens of the Black Lake before. 

They returned the gesture with a sort of terseness of gesture, thumbs jabbing at their throats. 

“There are several capacities in which so-called Magical Beasts and Beings are employed by the Ministry, particularly in climates inhospitable to witches and wizards. I’m certain you know of the Bowtruckles at the various wandwood preserves the Ministry oversees, though few but Ollivander forage there much in this age. That’s more of an unspoken trade, though - the Ministry has a great deal more trouble making known those situations in which it tacitly acknowledges the wizarding-commensurate intelligence and aptitude of other races through the responsibilities which it sometimes entrusts to them. In fact, a few years ago, you would have found extremely harried bubble-headed or Gillyweed-greened Aurors doing this job - because the politics around even so secretive a post took time to shift toward tolerance, even during the war.”

Hermione took this all in, though she wasn’t particularly _surprised._ Although - “Gillyweed-greened, sir?”

Albus tutted and reached back to bat at her wrist. “Stop that.” He shook his head with a long-suffering sigh, looking over both his shoulder and crooked nose at her. “Gillyweed, when it has been taken to excess, turns the user’s skin green. There have even been recorded cases, as in that of Calliope the Deep, who attempted to live among the Sirens of the Mediterranean and record their histories, of habitual users developing vestigial gills that never naturally faded away, as well as some other side effects.”

Hermione, never able to help herself (and never having read this), had to ask: “What other side effects, sir?”

He shrugged. “Cravings for sushi, inability to sleep without listening to the sound of the waves, the bends, half-mer-children, atrociously high-pitched singing voices - what you would expect, I suppose.”

Hermione blinked, quiet for a moment. “You know, I always wondered about this one Hufflepuff two years above me, was always swimming laps of the lake in all weather and could hold his breath a frightfully long time…”

Albus nodded. “Oh, undoubtedly. Yet another awkward subject, as far as the Ministry is concerned. The Undersecretary of Magical Birth Record Circumlocutions is forever having to come up with new, creative takes on truth.”

By this point, though, Narcissa was bouncing on the balls of her feet anxiously, and suddenly called out, “Ah! I knew we must be close by now! Here it comes…”

Hermione tried peering over the shorter woman and did indeed see something… a little lighter grey ahead. 

“Are you, perhaps, permitted to speak of this part?”, she asked, hopeful. 

The other three shook their heads, Narcissa with an apologetic smile. “Just… just savor the next few breaths, dearest.”

Before Hermione could come up with a way to ask what she meant in a way that might not trip any geas, the bubble popped without warning and frigid, incredibly heavy water closed in all around her, and she barely discerned that her body was spiraling upward propelled by some unseen force before she lost consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise a return of smut is coming. But. This will take a a few chapters and will scratch some plot and flirtation itches, I hope.
> 
> If you're curious, there's a lot of lore in here that's canon, and a lot I'm making up, too. The ways in are me. The origins of Azkaban and its rebirth as a prison are canon, as is its position somewhere in the North Sea. 
> 
> Effusive thanks to [ShriekingDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShriekingDragon/pseuds/ShriekingDragon) and [Datenshi_no_hime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Datenshi_no_hime/pseuds/Datenshi_no_hime) for their hard work as betas on this chapter, which is much the better for their attention to detail. You both are amazing and I'm exceptionally grateful for your help!


	69. Strike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2020 went out with a few ... bits of havoc, hence delay. Happy new year, though, and here's to a much better one for 2021!

### AZKABAN

“Hermione? Hermione! Albus, I cleared her lungs and warmed her, but she’s barely breathing and I can’t get her to respond! I… oh, Merlin, please help her! This isn’t what my training is for!”

Hermione heard Narcissa’s voice, but it was muffled, as though from a great distance through the dark.

“Hmm,” she vaguely heard Albus, thinking. When his voice returned, it was infused with a sort of… pedantic _gloriousness_. “Ms. Granger. Have you forgotten the eighth use of Dragon’s Blood _again? “_

Some part of Hermione shrank in shame and then reflexively started flailing through the murkiness of her mind toward the voice. Professor Dumbledore’s voice!

_“_ Oh, oh dear, oh dear. Surely you’re not at a loss for words? My goodness, how embarrassing.” 

He sounded _so_ disappointed in her. 

“I shall have to speak, I’m afraid, to Professor McGonagall regarding rescinding your recent scores on the NEWTs, if you can’t even tell me _that_ much. And there’s no question of you remaining Head Girl, of course…”

Hermione sat bolt upright spewing seawater amidst a cold puddle, her hand waving in the air above her head, and gasped, “Manticore repellent, sir!”

And then she blinked, shivering, as Narcissa sobbed in relief and started casting desalinization and drying charms on her as Albus grasped her hand and pulled her firmly upright, tucking her under his arm to help steady her when she swayed. “Oh, Hermione, I am so very sorry for that little bit of subterfuge on my part. _Manticore_ repellent, you say? Oh, most intriguing!”

Hermione blinked and looked around, the last drops evaporating from her eyelashes as she surveyed the forbidding atrium - lit from above by high, thin skylights and painted kelp green and black over metal and enormous blocks of stone. 

There was a pool beside where she’d awoken and near it, an appropriately foreboding a reception desk, but no one was there but for Albus, Narcissa, and herself. 

She stuffed her hands into her pockets and shivered, only to withdraw her wand from one to jab cleansing spells at the remains of her breakfast, now an unsalvageable mess, in the other. “Where’s Alastor?”

Albus patted her hand, which he’d wound around his arm. “I’m afraid that matters may have deteriorated here recently. Typically, there would have been guards, Aurors, and administrators present here - particularly mediwitches to revive visitors and staff arriving for their shifts at the door. That there were none… well, it may not be a good sign.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes, looking up at him. “What do you mean? How did we wake up, then? What could have caused something like this?”

Albus turned slowly on the spot, making her scuffle along with him as Narcissa, a few feet away, also looked warily around. “What I said. I didn’t lose consciousness, and was able to wake Narcissa and Alastor. And while Alastor is seeking specifics and evidence, well, I’d conjecture that the news, which would have arrived with the morning shift, that _I_ would be making a follow-up inspection here today may have caused some manner of upheaval among some of the island’s denizens - doubtless supported by at least some of the employees.”

Hermione gulped. “Can we reach the Ministry? Alert them that something’s wrong, ask for reinforcements?”

“Albus already sent a Patronus, but it has a long way to go,” Narcissa said softly, shivering. “It takes time to get here, time to plan a response, time to muster the necessary wands. We may get a Patronus back - but even that will take time we may not have.”

Hermione took a few steps forward, finding her balance had more or less returned to her without Albus’s help, and pressed her back against Narcissa’s, holding her own wand ready. “Can we leave?”

Before anyone could answer, Alastor walked up briskly, exiting a fortified looking door and shaking his head as he overheard. “Kissed, both Wenlock and Plunkett, the two guards meant to be here. They’d tried to stuff the gap under the tower door, poor beggars, much good it did them. The Administrator's Office is empty, but ol’ Stump may simply be off in Tenerife playing golf for the holiday. Scrimgeour and Crouch are meant to be on site today, as well as a receptionist and two mediwitches from St. Mungo’s I don’t personally know - they always rotate out quickly, not many gentle or sociable souls can withstand a lot of time here. I haven’t seen a single sodding Dementor, but there are no seals, gulls, or puffins on the barmy rocks, and my eye starts twitching like mad if I even try to look toward the main cell block.” He reached them with a sigh, not stilling but immediately taking up position opposite Dumbledore and starting to scan the room. “The only good news is that both guards still had their wands. I haven’t seen any other husks, so there are others unaccounted for if those remaining five and however many Unspeakables are actually here today, but,” he shrugged. “If prisoners are out of their cells, they may still be wandless.”

Hermione tried to still the tremor in her hands. “Can we _leave?”_ she repeated.

Moody’s face fell when he caught her eye, despite having seemed perfectly calm as he updated them, which told her she wasn’t putting on so brave a face as she’d like. “The way out… is through whatever I can’t look at, and can only be reached by passing through - along the fronts of the cells.”

Hermione let her eyes close for two beats before reopening them. “Then I suspect we’d better move.”

❧

The inside of Azkaban was a disorienting patchwork of slightly modified natural caves and sinister architecture. They had to walk across a metal catwalk through a cave which appeared to bridge some gaps between distinct, separate islands, over the sea. The catwalk, it seemed, was necessary because there were gaps, here and there, through which one could see the water below - or be sprayed with wind and rain from above. The rails remained steady, though, and there continued to be no sign of the island's guards - or prisoners. 

While Alastor completed a rather complex charm that included some motions of his Auror badge to unlock the next door, Hermione was conscious of everyone tensing in anticipation - except perhaps Dumbledore, who’d remarked on what fine examples of altostratus clouds there were to be seen through a particular window in the cavernous hall’s ceiling with genuine delight. 

Nothing could have prepared Hermione, though, for what they found in that first hall of cells. 

As they walked in to the sound of distant muttering and cackling, at least ten sets of dull, unseeing eyes turned toward them from behind the bars lining both sides of the wide expanse. Even as Hermione drew up short and nearly bumped into Narcissa, who had stopped and gasped, she recognized that there was something eerily simultaneous about the motion. 

“Dammit!”, muttered Alastor, both eyes darting around frantically in shock. 

Albus was in motion though, shining light into cells and rapidly moving down the hall with his wand aloft and lit. 

Narcissa backpedaled into Hermione, shaking. “Kissed. They’ve all been… they’re soulless, Hermione. Every one of them.”

Alastor checked a couple of the nearest then gestured for them to follow him and catch up with Albus, talking as they went. “This was the minimum security block. People who did minor things, or who were awaiting trial for less serious charges. Some inmates who’d been here so long they weren’t themselves anymore - but in the peaceful way, not the dangerous one. Half of these poor beggars were in here because of me.” He shook his head, pointing to one middle-aged woman, sitting vacantly on the floor. “That’s Tamara Graves. She’d started performing for Muggles using real magic rather than tricks. Probably would have been released next week for time served.”

Hermione fought the urge to throw up as numerous heads reflexively followed the sound of their voices with eyes never quite focusing on the passersby. “You didn’t do this, Alastor,” she finally made herself say. “This wasn’t supposed to - this _didn’t_ happen. That means, if anyone’s responsible, it’s _me._ ”

“Hermione!” Narcissa cried, but Alastor was already talking.

“No. No. I don’t know how many lives you’ve already saved, and Helga knows I was among your first and most strenuous detractors when you arrived. But you didn’t do this, Hermione. You didn’t, but someone did, and we will get to them and put a stop to it.”

Hermione appreciated his earnest attempt, but it didn't soothe the howling abyss that seemed to be tearing a sucking hole through her chest. 

They trudged on.

"Ah, Carlotta!," they heard Dumbledore say, just as he came into view near the end of the hall. "Never have I been more delighted to see you hale and whole!"

❧

The witch standing in the cell at the end of the corridor twitched at every creek, every gust of wind, but despite her agitation and obvious eccentricity (she’d torn one of her white-and-black striped pant legs away and was wearing it as a headband, for starters), she faultlessly maintained the lioness Patronus who placed in a wide circuit around them all - including three other terrified but intact inmates in the cells nearest hers. 

"Them mildewy hankies tried, but it didn't take ‘em long to figure out we down here weren't worth the trouble. All sped off out these shite excuses for windows and legged it - well, except _not -_ toward the high security cells. They'd come from that way, too. Whatever's happening, it's organized there. I'm betting it was one of the cultists, those damn Death Sniffers -"

"- Ah, Death Eaters?", Albus clarified

The twitchy woman shrugged, ruffling her own matted, salt-and-pepper hair. "Death _Lickers_ for all I care. That cult's a shitty little goth band less a lead singer, and the sooner it's dispersed, the easier I'll sleep. Tried to tell me - me! - I should join them because they wanted magic in the open. But I don't think we should rule, let alone _kill_ the Muggles. Someone worked his thumbs so far up all their arses their brains ran out their noses." She paused in her rant and sniffed, pointing to her left. "Only saved this kid ‘coz he cries for his mam all the time, and that sallow one there because I know the others want ‘im dead, which might mean he's not _entirely_ rotten," she said, pointing across the hall."

She'd pointed to two figures Hermione immediately recognized: Barty Crouch, Jr, who'd backed into a far corner and started sobbing when he saw Hermione (whose true face he’d seen when she was being carried away from the now-burned Long’s Bottom barn, unconscious), and then Igor Karkaroff, who was also crouched furtively far from his door - but quiet and watchful. 

Which left…

"And I suppose you and Sunny Dunny here are old friends, given how often you must cross paths coming and going from here," Alastor said, shaking his head at a Mundungus Fletcher who was poised to grovel whenever he could edge a word in.

Carlotta twitched and then, with a strangely innocent, coquettish little smile, winked over at the thief. "Oh yeah, we go way back. Cor, though, what the 'ell are you all doing here?" 

Albus shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Visiting, and making inquiries regarding progress toward the transition to Boreray. Didn't anticipate the current arrangement, I'm afraid. Must have all just happened recently?"

Mundungus, who was clinging to the bars and scanning up and down the hall in an obvious state of panic, spoke before Carlotta could. "You only missed it by minutes, Dumbledore, sir, but they could come back at any time. Get us out of here, _please!_ I'll even tell Moody where the Twinhurst haul's stashed - just please, please don't let them eat my… my _me!"_

Carlotta snorted. “Like I can’t watch over the bunch of you ninnies on my lonesome. Dung, I hear there’s gonna be _heat_ in the new joint - and bathrooms with showers and _laundry_ cleaning, even. A kitchen wot makes more than just gruel. Best place for us is safe in here, until we’re safe in _there_ , while these heroes go sort the _real_ bad sorts, sure as Boggarts in yer mam’s attic.”

Dumbledore exchanged a glance with Moody, then looked to the anxious thief behind his bars. “Mundungus, as you have been a great asset to the Order these many years, I certainly wish to expedite your release from this unpleasant situation - but tell me, would you rather be helping us fight Dementors and possibly Voldemort’s inner circle with an unfamiliar wand, or here, in a cell no one remaining on the isle but Alastor can open, under the protection of Carlotta’s quite expert wandless casting? I know you aren’t a particularly eager duelist.”

Mundungus sagged, stepping back uncertainly. “Well, I suppose if you’re going to put it like that…”

Albus nodded, smiling. “Rest assured, your help will be remembered and remarked upon in your upcoming hearings. And Igor, _do_ stop cowering. It ill becomes you.”

Hermione glanced at Crouch, who quickly ducked his face behind his hands again. 

“Barty?” she asked. “I know you aren’t close, but have you seen your father here today? If anything happened to him - or you - I know your mother would be quite upset.” She bent to his eye level, wondering if it was already too late to even try to reach this one. “If there’s anything you know that might help us, I wish you’d speak. I’m… look, I’m not angry with you,” she half-lied, “and I’d like to help you and all the rest of us get out of here. If you’re holding anything back, consider whether you think the Dementors who came through here had been instructed to avoid you or whether your former colleagues neglected to make any such arrangement before you discount the potential value of new friends.”

She felt the others quietly watch the exchange, one-sided as it was, as she gave him a moment to think and perhaps reply.

And then another. And another. But nothing came.

Sighing, she stood up, debating which hand to put Gryffindor’s sword in, and which to place her wand in as she followed the others toward the door. 

“Bellatrix,” came a hoarse whisper from behind them.

She stopped, and turned.

Crouch had sidled up to the center of his cell - as close as he intended to get, apparently, and was looking at them with huge, too-young eyes.

Hermione approached slowly. “What about Bellatrix, Barty?”

“Said… said the Dementors should be on our side and it was obvious. After… after the Headmaster last came, said they were being sacked. It was before my mum got Dad to have me moved out here, so I heard her. And… he’s here, with that other one, who looks like a lion. They went in a while before the Dementors… before the Dementors…”

He trailed off, shuddering. “I knew Daisy Wallace, who’s just there,” he said, pointing down the block. “Never would have hurt a fly, just couldn’t stop herself nicking things. And… and I don’t think they even thought about me here. Only the Dark Lord ever thought of _me._ Cared about _me._ ”

Hermione stepped back. “Thank you, Barty.”

He shrugged. “I’ll still find _him_. But Bellatrix, we’re done, s’all.”

Hermione made a face. “Maybe you’ll give me a chance to talk with you about that before I have to testify in your trial?”

He, too, made a face - but reluctantly nodded.

“Hermione, I fear we must make haste.”

Nodding, Hermione straightened and started to follow, wand in her off hand and sword held ready.

Just as Alastor unsealed the door, she heard another hoarse whisper. “Watch yourself, miss.”

She turned around, brow quirked, to see a conflicted-looking Barty hovering near the bars at the front of his cage.

“They… they were able to heal Rabastan at St. Mungo’s.”

She thought about this a moment. “Completely?”

He nodded, eyes pulling away in embarrassment. 

She nodded briskly before turning back to the door. “Well. It’s a simple enough fix.”

❧

The next cell block was different. Darker. Danker. Mostly masonry, but some natural rock walls, distorting the otherwise squarish cells with bumps and jags, and defining places with lower ceilings and the overall space of the block. Bars surrounding some of the cells simply patched natural openings in the stone, leaving broad swaths of the place open to the elements. In places, high swells sometimes lapped the floor through a rusty grate, and in others, the wind howled through. It was two stories and had cast-iron walkways along the second floor on both sides, along the fronts of the second floor of cells, and a large, open space in the center where an only mostly enclosed, large, courtyard-like area looked mildewed and unused. The room curved away to the right with the natural rock, but a spanning walkway and spiraling stairs down were visible perhaps 30 yards ahead.

Also, notably, the cell doors were all open or ajar. 

It appeared ominously as if there was no one there, though the cells were littered with dark lumps in bunks and on floors. As they could only see the far side at this point, since this side’s cells hadn’t started, Hermione could not discern whether she was looking at blankets... or bodies.

Narcissa sighed when they came through the door, and unlike the rest of them, looked down at her feet, seeming determined _not_ to acquaint herself with the place. 

Or, Hermione thought, _reacquaint_ herself. 

“Bad memories?” she whispered, resting the warmth of her palm on the other woman’s back. 

With a slight glance back at Hermione, Narcissa nodded, mustering a weak smile. Hermione didn’t know who she might have visited here. She, more than the rest of them, was ill-dressed for the mission this had become rather than the visit it had been intended to be. She wore a knee-length, camel-colored cashmere skirt and a beautifully lacy ivory sweater that would have looked hopelessly like some great aunt’s frilly doily on Hermione, but it looked effortlessly lovely on Narcissa; just dark enough to show off the exquisite paleness of her skin at cuffs, collar, and every flash of skin visible as the tiny holes in the lacework moved with her, gooseflesh and all. She’d certainly warm whomever she deigned to visit, thus. As they moved, she effortlessly carried her weight on her toes - or so it seemed, because the high, narrow heels of her tall brown boots never sank through the gaps in the open metalwork as they walked. Hermione wondered if it was a spell. 

She also wondered _who_ it was Narcissa had been here to see _before_ Lucius’s imprisonment as they picked their way quietly along a close rock face toward the first cells on their side. She knew, at least, that her father had died improbably young.

It didn’t seem the time to ask.

There continued to be no sign of movement other than from the gloomy sky and the waves outside as they came abreast of the beginning of the bars on their side. These cells, unlike the others, had thick stone walls rather than bars between them, keeping each inmate better isolated from their neighbors. Their bars were also inscribed all over, if this first one was any indication, with cramped but meticulously engraved runes. Hermione goggled at the acrid feeling pinging off of them, unthinkingly shrinking away, skirting dangerously close to the unrailed edge of the path before…

“Careful, there,” a gruff voice said, and Alastor darted behind Albus and Narcissa to catch her around the waist with one arm and haul her back from the brink. 

Hermione was panting with adrenaline from the single instant of certainty that she’d fall before he reeled her in, not straight to where she was but toward himself - the most expedient direction in which to pull her given his arm was attached, she reminded herself, wobbling as she fought down a flush.

“Constant vigilance,” said Dumbledore lightly, just a hint of teasing in his voice as he bent over the pile of blankets within the cell, facing away from them. Narcissa had already followed him in and was looking at the runes inscribed on the walls, ceiling, and floor with a moue of revulsion. 

Hermione looked back up at Alastor, because she sort of _had_ to. “Em… thanks.”

He shrugged, seeming to realize he had her pinned to his side only when he rucked her front up his side. “Oh, um, sure.” After slightly - but not _entirely_ \- relaxing his arm and thus his hold on her, he spoke in a quick, low voice, less carrying than a whisper. “Eh, listen, Hermione, I didn’t mean, earlier… I mean, I’m this ancient, battered, used-up thing, and I would _never_ presume, whatever his high holy pointy hat with stars on is up to, that you… I mean, that _you_ … could ever… I mean, I just want you to know that I’m a realistic wizard and I’ll get over this little flutter of younger man’s yearnings, I don’t want you to have to feel … to feel vigilant around _me,_ is all. Please don’t worry for a moment I’ll make any… you know… fuss.”

He stopped with a sort of verbal lurch, and looked every inch a man who was too embarrassed by his arm around an attractive woman’s waist to realize he’d rambled.

Hermione felt something conflicted, an unsettledness around her stomach, waft away from her as she saw this seasoned warrior, cagey trickster, clever detective try to make himself small and unintimidating to her. 

So, bypassing addressing any of that, she said, “Have a pint with me at the Leaky later?”

He stiffened, forgetting to look elsewhere, and gawked at her. “I’m sorry?”

“After we save the day, may I buy you a drink, Alastor?”

His now-only-slightly-scarred nose wrinkled in confusion.

She looked up at him patiently.

“Yes?”

She smiled and leaned up to give him a peck on the cheek. “Lovely. I’ll look forward to it, then, to get through this ghastly business.”

As she gently disengaged herself and walked up to see what the others had found in the cell, she saw Narcissa smirking very slightly and shaking her head.

❧

Albus had immediately shushed her when she’d try to ask him what he was seeing - other than that, as she herself could now discern, it was some poor soul’s pale body wrapped in those rags on the floor. 

Well. Hopefully there was still a soul, at least, and not just little bites of one being slowly dissolved by the ethereal gastric processes of a Dementor. 

She started to look around the bunk and the sad little sink and toilet bowl, casting quiet revealing charms and _Finites_ without much expectation that they’d really uncover much else in however many more minutes Albus needed to conclude his investigation.

Which he did finally, standing up like an old man showing every year of his age instead of as the spritely presence he more often seemed to be. “She’s alive, barely,” he said. “A tiny grain of soul is left. Any more taken, and it would never have had a chance to heal.”

Hermione took a few deep breaths, letting herself release the tension she’d been carrying along with the suspicion that all these people were dead, somehow because of her.

Then she asked. “A tiny grain?”

Albus nodded. “It is not an easy process, but with medical support, she and anyone else in a similar state will recover in time. The soulless body can be easily led through its own care, if for some reason prolonging such an existence seems worthwhile. The nearly disensouled, however, go into a state not unlike a coma. Their magic will be weakened for anywhere from a month to a year when they awake, but if they’re cared for, they _will_ awake in perhaps two to four weeks.”

Narcissa glanced around. “This place is oppressive by design. I can’t imagine anything growing back here.”

Albus cocked his head, smiling. “Always clever, Narcissa. Yes. In the past, when the Ministry has had what it called _accidents_ with the Dementors and their wards, they have had to be taken to St. Mungo’s rather than the Azkaban Healer’s infirmary - which is similar to ours at Hogwarts, if somewhat smaller and more dreary.” Albus frowned suddenly. “Alastor, I say, were there any-”

Moody shook his head, frowning. “No one in evidence. Checked while I was on that side of things. Didn’t look as though there had been any sort of scuffle, though, and there were no bodies. If there are no patients in need of overnight care - or, _were_ none, at any rate - Healer Lal may also be on leave. The Aurors who rotate through are sufficiently trained in first response care, after all.”

Hermione nodded, returning to the doorway out of the cell. “Alright, then. Let’s continue. This is grounds for cautious optimism, but no one else has been checked yet.”

❧

Nearly everyone they checked - and they checked thoroughly, each of the four taking a different side and level and staying abreast of each other - was in similar straights. 

There were a few notable exceptions. Three cells were empty, and Narcissa grimly stood with a long, pale hair between her fingers after investigating the bunk in one of them, letting it spiral down on little drifts and eddies of air to Hermione, who was checking the cell immediately below. Hermione hoped it was just Narcissa’s own hair, found in error, but it felt coarser when she plucked it off the dark stone floor. 

There were also the dead ones. 

First, there was a blue-clad mediwizard, and a young woman in a bright, youthfully professional uniform robe who was likely to have been a receptionist. They both appeared to have fallen badly from the second floor to the first, its unforgiving stone having ended their… what? Attempt to help? To fight back? They were found close together, and the young woman’s wand was lying broken under her body - but the young man’s was nowhere to be found. 

“These were Ellison Burke and Artemisia Fawley. It was a violent death,” Alastor murmured quietly as he gently closed their eyes. “I believe both their souls were likely to have been intact - and hopefully, they moved on.” 

They had all gathered around the corpses, which at least were partly obscured from anyone who might come from around the bend by another two spiraling flights of stairs. 

“What happens,” Hermione asked, thinking, “if a ghost is made here? I mean, unresolved feelings… there must be hundreds of them here, but I haven’t seen _any._ It’s actually rather unsettling, really.”

Alastor sighed. “Eaten,” he replied.

Narcissa made a horrified face - and while Dumbledore’s expression didn’t change, Hermione was sure she, too, was gaping in horror.

There was one other body nearby, too - this one a prisoner. He also lay on the floor below the walkways of the second story, his face a rictus of anger and his hands balled into fists. 

Alastor _hrmph_ ed at the sight of him, shaking his head before leaning against the nearest bit of wall with no bars. “Couldn’t’ve happened to a nicer gentleman,” he said, and Hermione glanced from him, to Dumbledore (who was already absorbed in his analysis of the remains), to Narcissa, who was very, very pale and had stopped several feet short of him. 

“Nevin Rosier,” she told Hermione quietly. “He was … a fixture at Lucius’s little parties.”

Hermione ducked out her lips and then shrugged. “Well, then.” She peered up ahead, around the bend. “What’s yet this way?”

Alastor was the one to reply. “We’ve seen most of the cells. There’s another bridge, after them. The laboratory is ahead, along with emergency staff quarters in case it’s ever necessary for them to stay here overnight. The kitchen is there, along with whatever few elves have been consigned to it by dissatisfied masters, typically in their dotage. They live in the cupboards, as I recall. There’s also an owl’s roost, far enough in to be sheltered from the weather, and on a floor above the rest. The architect and erstwhile resident’s quarters are near the owls, whatever remains of them - he took out a chunk of the ceiling when he went, as I understand it, and people don’t go in there much because it’s a frequent haunt of the Dementors when they’re not sucking just a little more away from the prisoners here.” He shook his head. “The exit is through the lab, which is at the end. Mrs. Lestrange would have visited before,” he said, glancing over at Narcissa, who was simply nodding. “She’d know to go that way, to get out. But… if she really struck a deal, that’s a bit sticky, really - because there are protections that keep Dementors from using it.”

“Which a clever, determined magician with no scruples could remove or circumvent,” murmured Albus, not looking up from easing open Nevin Rosier’s closed hand with a spell.

Alastor looked incensed. “How? How in the bleeding hell could you?” He stomped a foot, flexing his hands open and closed in barely constrained frustration. “Albus, surely after all these years, if it were possible-”

“It is, Alastor. I’m sorry,” Albus said, levitating a torn piece of cloth up out of barely unclenched fingers. 

Alastor rubbed at his face. “ _Maybe_ you could have mentioned that so we might have _fixed_ it.”

Dumbledore did look up, now, the cloth floating above his hand. “ _If_ I had said, someone would have _heard_ me say it, Alastor. I would have been forced to elaborate, tell whomever _how_ it might be defeated. And whatever we tell ourselves, tell our friends, our fellow citizens, our _children_ to help them sleep at night, no work of magic is absolute. There’s always a way to outwit a spell; once cast, unlike a thinking mage, it cannot continue to adapt to new attempts to defeat it. People, on the other hand, are forever devising new sorts of trouble, and do so most brilliantly in extremis.” He looked back down again as Moody faded from furious to merely irritated and tired. “We only ever invent anything truly worthwhile, I think,” he mused, squinting at the cloth, “when we tell the impossible, no.”

Hermione didn't think Alastor would be well pleased by philosophical ruminations, and that could easily be where an un-intercepted Dumbledore would head. “What have you found there, Albus?” she asked.

“I think,” he said, “That it’s a piece of Rufus’s rather remarkable cloak.”

Hermione vaguely registered the tan leather edged in buff-colored fur as she blinked, leaning forward. “So Scrimgeour was here? Fighting?”

Albus nodded as he stood. “Nevin was the recipient of what was likely a well-deserved _Confringo,_ or so I’d guess. And,” he said, glancing around, “As I see no body, I think it’s not unreasonable to hope that Rufus may yet be alive.”

They all went to the next cells in silence, hoping he was right as they started toward the end of the block with renewed purpose.


	70. Maelstrom

As it turned out, Hermione wouldn’t have a chance to look through Ekrizdis’ forgotten underwear drawer.

“Fu..!” she swore, bowling Narcissa over and back across the threshold as a curse flew, hot and smelling of ozone, an inch shy of her left ear. 

Hermione’d only just opened the door from the short service hall into what had appeared to be an altogether-quiet sitting area off the grand foyer. She and Narcissa had taken this floor, while Alastor and Albus had gone up to the second.

Narcissa was tossing locking and impediment-fixing charms at the swinging double doors even while she was fretfully pawing over Hermione’s hair, looking for damage. “Are you alright?” she whispered. “I swear, Hermione, none of the detection spells, it looked -”

Hermione nodded, gathering herself upright again. “Yep, they pretty thoroughly hornswoggled us there. I suppose it could be done with a… oh, it doesn’t matter, all academic now.” 

Narcissa was pale and drawn as Hermione gently disentangled herself and resumed a crouch, getting ready to try again. “Did you see the Dementors?”

Hermione shook her head, her mouth a grim line. “I did not, though … there’s a certain thickening to the air on the other side of the doors, isn’t there? Getting worrying, that.”

Narcissa cursed, sending Hermione blinking. “My goodness, Lady Malfoy, did they teach you those pretty words in finishing school?”

Hermione dodged a half-hearted retaliatory swat before hazarding a quick peek out the barest crack in the door, immediately slamming and spelling it again afterward. There was an immediate, loud thud against the other side. “Darling, are you certain I can’t kill your estranged spouse? I can only imagine it would be problematic for you to meet him like this, and, well, there’s motion beyond, but he’s the one guarding this particular corridor.” 

Narcissa scowled at her. “If it must be done, I expect the honor to be reserved for _me.”_

Hermione shook her head. “As you wish, then - only this is _already_ getting old. Wait here. I think we can leave your cover intact.”

Before any objections could be voiced and without the expected caution, Hermione sprang up through the doorway, raising a shield charm as she lunged directly at a smirking Lucius Malfoy, coming out from behind a moldering sofa with a flourish of his wand and -

And she brought the pommel of the Sword of Gryffindor down hard on his head before he could quit showboating about and _cast_.

“Peacocking arsehole,” Hermione muttered, propelling him ungently off to the side with a kick to the ribs in order to clear the way. 

While Hermione watched Lucius’s slack-jawed, unconscious form flop onto his back, she noticed he was trembling strangely - not as if from within, but as if being shaken by one of those hilarious quarter-eating motel beds in old American movies. 

“Well, that’s…” _Odd_ , Hermione finished in her thoughts as she heard Narcissa, who’d clearly crept out after her, cry out in quiet shock while her husband stilled - and then disappeared. 

Narcissa cried out and cast about the floor frantically, as if he’d been a marble that might have rolled under the furniture, rather than a fully-grown sack of dung bombs, but Hermione was frowning and studying the sword. “Please don’t have imbibed _that_ ,” Hermione murmured, before snapping herself out of it and checking the room. Or alcove, really. Slightly louder, she said, “Narcissa, the sword’s done something, but I’m sure he’s fine - we have to leave it for now, there’s nothing we can do.”

The blonde rose to her feet fretfully, but nodded.

The air was definitely thicker here, saturated with residue of foreboding dread the prison’s guards oozed in their wake. It must have been a pleasant little sitting area once, though - and Hermione wondered if Ekrizdis had had a fretting old parent or sometimes-partner who had had the dauntless panache and soaring optimism to attempt to make some corner of this hellhole resemble a home. A striped chaise, which once must have been quite lovely, was placed with its back against the wall that housed the door to the hall they’d come from. It faced the moldering green velvet sofa Lucius had been hidden behind, and between them lay the splinters of a spindly coffee table, which appeared to have been broken recently. There was a large, marble-framed fireplace beside it all, its lines somewhat less foreboding than most of the island’s decor. As Hermione crept closer to the low murmuring of voices in the echoing foyer beyond, though, she ground to a halt at the sight of a supine figure lying on the ground just behind where Malfoy had laid in wait.

❧

“Narcissa?” she called faintly, blinking, a long moment later. “Do you happen to know who this is?”

The good Lady Malfoy hurried over, peering over the couch and then sighing. “Pandora’s in trouble. Must be a day that ends in y.” Narcissa knelt quickly to draw aside some of the woman’s chaotic dark blonde waves and check her pulse while Hermione bit her lip, taking in the willowy woman in the wingtip brogues and tweed morning coat. It was an odd ensemble, both masculine and old Oxbridge gentry with its close-fitting tweed trousers and vest, though the blush-colored silk blouse, tied at its high neck with a pussy bow, softened it. In unconsciousness her face was wan, dreamy, and fae - like, possibly literally largely fae, with the ears that flirted with points at their tips, eerily high cheekbones and huge, slanting eyes. The tips of her long fingers - on both hands - were stained with viridian ink. 

Narcissa looked up from checking her over for injuries in a moment, sighing. “ She was … she was four years behind me at Hogwarts yet _very_ precocious. Clumsy and absent-minded, though. She’s an Unspeakable - that’d be why she’s here, I’d guess. Let’s… get her _behind_ cover instead of on the wrong side of it, at least. I think she’s just been stunned, but I don’t want to _Rennervate_ her because she’s also suffered a rather nasty clout to the head.”

Hermione lifted the willowy, disconcertingly light woman and placed her on the chaise, casting a fixed shielding over her, then massaged her own temples, frowning as Narcissa fussed a bit, arranging Pandora’s feet with her ankles crossed and folding her hands on her ribcage. “Why are all these people in your generation so damned _pretty_?” Hermione asked, as it was often on her mind. “It _really_ does my head in.”

Narcissa chuckled. “Aren’t they in yours? Or were you destined to find your way here and take lovers who were worthy of you from the beginning?”

Hermione scowled and elbowed her gently as they both crept up toward the foyer proper to glance around its corner. “You’re also all still half-stuck in my mind as parental sorts to my classmates, which helps not a jot.”

Narcissa hushed her, beckoning her closer to the corner she’d reached first. “Be quiet. And grateful, for that matter; can _you_ think of many people who have been as consistently well-fucked as you, Hermione? Because I certainly can’t. On some level it must be good to be the heroic outsider.”

Hermione pinched Narcissa’s side, standing on tiptoe to peek around the corner over her platinum head. 

“Ah,” she breathed.

She felt more than heard Narcissa gulp.

❧

The good news was that the two Aurors were still alive. The bad started with the fact that they were slumped, battered, and bound in chains back-to-back on the floor to the far side of the grand entranceway, whose enormous doors were thrown open, the occasional curtain of rain wafting in to slicken the marble parquet. In that entranceway stood Bellatrix and Rabastan, heads bent together, as beyond them a curtain of dementors wove and circled over a huge, whirling gyre in the water.

“Let me guess,” Hermione whispered, her voice uncharacteristically high. “Is that the exit, then?”

Narcissa nodded. 

There was a piteously narrow little stone walkway over the gaping maw of water, ending right at its center like some sort of malnourished Lovecraftian diving board. 

Hermione hissed through her teeth. “You know. I don’t think I like Azkaban, or your Lucius and his vile little friends. 

The wind was picking up and it roared through the door - and apparently right through the Dementors, who were moved by some more unearthly current. Hermione narrowed her eyes as Bellatrix threw her arms around Rabastan’s neck and he picked her up, spinning her around in some mockery of glee and love as they exchanged blood-spattered smiles. 

Hermione smelled something acrid and familiar, somehow, just as they clashed in a passionate kiss and Narcissa shuddered back against her. It was just as Hermione’s eyes slid across the floor to see the cauldron boiling between the twin staircases that she heard the roar.

“You villainous shits!” Alastor bellowed as he charged down the stairs, his wand aflame with hex after hex after hex. 

One ricocheted obliquely off Bellatrix’s shield as she hastily erected it, only to hit Rabastan in the ankle and petrify - literally _petrify -_ his foot, the chalky limestone of his shoe spreading, merging into the once-smooth floor beneath his calcified sole.

“Fuck!” he screamed, trying to wrench himself free in panic, forgetting the wand in his hand - as Bellatrix surged forward, _her_ wand blurring in a sickeningly familiar arch as she glared at Moody, who was almost down the stair. 

Hermione swore and burst out from behind the couch, coming pelting into the foyer with “ _Impedimenta!”_ on her lips. 

Hermione dove into a roll as the words left her lips and was as relieved to hear muttering and cracking marble behind her as she was terrified to see Bellatrix’s eyes flashing red with rage before her eyes, her slowed wand inching around to aim at _her_. 

Some childhood nightmares are hard to grow out of, even if one _is_ a Gryffindor.

But out from behind the half-frozen Bellatrix stepped a now-freed Rabastan Lestrange, his mouth opening to spill some insinuation or other as his wand pointed unerringly at her forehead. “Now, kitten, I -”

\--only to be cut off with a shriek of indignation as Narcissa stepped around the corner, _her_ eyes as sea-deep-terrible as the maelstrom, hurling a silent curse from her wand and a roaring fireball from her empty but suddenly clawed free hand. The fireball hissed into the water beyond, a tracery of orange fire swirling into the deep as Rabastan went down, his knees wobbling bonelessly out from under him. 

Bellatrix, moving only slightly more quickly, has started to turn toward her sister, gaping. 

“Slimy mannerless misbegotten heap of _tripe!”_ the youngest Black sister shouted her eyes half mad as she bore down on the backward-scrambling form of LeStrange with a smaller fireball forming above her hand. “There is no punishment - none! - the equal of what you deserve for what your family did to my sister, what you did to _my_ girl!”

Hermione scrambled up, warily noting Bellatrix’s eyes widening. “Narcissa, maybe-” she started.

But Narcissa had already loosed the fireball and Rabastan howled in pain, wand falling from his fingers as both hands flew to try to protect the smoking ruin of whatever magic had restored between his legs. 

Hermione gulped and made a quick decision to prioritize unbinding the Aurors over the various other tasks at hand, scrambling over to them and trying to sever what turned out to be a self-regenerating chain with annoyance before attempting a variety of counterspells. Bellatrix meanwhile seemed to hang suspended and not fighting it, her eyes curious on her pale younger sister as Moody hobbled up, blood and bits of pulverized marble in his hair, and shot coil after coil of conjured ropes around the unblinking Bella.

Hermione finally got at least Scrimgeour free and, handing him a spare wand (his and Barty Senior 's had been snapped, it turned out), left him to free his colleague before warily approaching the four at the door.

“Well, this is - wait, why aren’t we…. Oh.” Hermione broke off to stare at the sight of Dumbledore outside, apparently compressing all the Dementors - and it might have actually been damn near ALL the Dementors that so much as existed - into a writhing 10-meter sphere made of some sort of modified shield charm altered to constrict. 

Hermione dodged between the various souls in the entryway to come out and around the rocky outcropping that partly surrounded the maelstrom and scramble up next to Dumbledore, trying to figure out his spell. “I’m glad you’re on our side, Albus.”

Albus affected a look of unfocused benevolence, but there was a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his forehead. “As well you should be, Hermione. I wonder, do you suppose we could attempt another more permanent solution to this problem? You see, at it turns out, it only took a few minutes in the chambers above to find proof that the Dementors are, indeed, a manufactured atrocity, and while they understand as intelligent beings might, it is only a sophistication of their appetites - and I for one would feel little remorse at their undoing.”

Hermione considered that, and the weight of a now-familiar pommel in her hand. “Is it odd that I rather wish I didn’t agree with you? That I could on principle wish to preserve them, for some reason?”

Dumbledore shrugged a little stiffly, the drop rolling past his eye and loitering on his cheekbone. “I don’t think so. They’re a brilliant monstrosity. If it helps, though,” he said, squinting in concentration, “I think I can’t help but let several escape, as I sense they’re no longer bound here and I can’t hold this much longer. You’ve only the one sword, and they do fly, after all. Thinning the ranks, however, may make the difference in whether they stay and fight or flee, though.”

Hermione didn’t need much convincing of that as she watched the dark robes swirl and begin to bend the shape of their prison. She lifted Gryffindor’s sword into a _Vom Tag_ guard, then took a few steps forward and a deep breath before nodding to the headmaster.

And then, of course, all hell broke loose. 

As the barrier burst, Hermione was already swinging the blade over and down, slicing through fleeing black cowls, sleeves, and capes, shearing through dozens of little _pops_ of resistance as the horrors fell to dust before the blade. 

But as Dumbledore predicted, she wasn’t getting them all. 

At the same time, Bellatrix - who had apparently exaggerated the longevity of the _Impedimenta_ ’s effect on her - sliced herself free with a slice of her vile black wand, which had been cocooned in rope still in her hand. She sliced the flesh of her shoulder in the same spell but was already in motion and not to be stopped, blasting Alastor and Narcissa backward off their feet and leaping through the door - 

And into the air, soaring over Hermione’s head in the pale hands of several of the Dementors who’d gotten away, some of whom had swooped to retrieve Rabastan and carry him behind them. 

Dumbledore was roaring his Patronus into being, then trying to direct it to gather as many of the fleeing nightmares as possible back within range of Hermione’s arm, and while his eyes widened at the sight of the fleeing Death Eaters, he spared Hermione a tight shake of his head and prioritized driving numbers at her. She hissed in disagreement but couldn’t do much more than stand there in the torrent and swing like hell as wave after wave of monster fell upon her only to fall to dust on at her feet where they struggled to maintain a wide stance on the round, wet rocks. 

Until one knocked her from behind.

“Morgana’s knickers, no - Hermione!” she heard Albus yell as she tumbled backward, losing her grip on the sword to windmill her arms, trying to cast… _something_ … until the gyre closed over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to glorious returning betas ShriekingDragon and Datenshi_no_hime, both for their notes and for not revenge-unpublishing them upon unanimously concluding this cliffhanger was evil.


End file.
